Maximum Ride: What if?
by internet weaver
Summary: What if the flock had a little help getting out of The School? Currently under rewrite, namely scratching all the OC out of it. Will rewrite soon.
1. The Two Spirits

Maximum Ride: What If?

Okay, I've been getting a lot of feedback about people worried that Ghost is somehow going to singlehandedly turn this story into a Mary Sue. Rest easy, I'm deliberately, painstakingly making sure that this doesn't happen.

I'm going to give you guys a few spoilers here as proof that this is not a Mary Sue: He doesn't fall in love with anyone (romantically anyways), the only humor he has is the graveyard brand, which no one in the flock finds funny in the least. He's not near as smart as any of them (this is comparatively here. He's still way smarter than a human). He can't fly gracefully or quickly, and it is very hard for him to fly for long periods. His only abilities are is craftiness, muscle strength, and healing. He is not destined to save the world or any of that junk, and he is not some how going to solve every thing. He is not omnipotent, nor is he wise. Just because some 8-year-old decides to include him or her self in their story doesn't mean all OC's are the product of that line of thinking.

The spoilers you might have skipped above are over. I hope that everyone is satisfied that I'm trying my hardest to keep him a minor character but still relevant enough to explain the change to the storyline.

This story takes place in Maximum Ride, right after Angel collapsed on the treadmill at the lab and is being carried back. Max has just returned to Fang and Nudge after being patched up by Dr. Martinez.

NEW:

P.S. I know I should have posted this sooner- it's now at least a month old, but I'm A) Lazy, and B) I wanted to get 700 hits before I upgraded anything. I guess 697 hits is close enough to that goal, and I'll update chapter 2 at 700. I also did this because there's a huge drop-off after chapter one, so I'm assuming no one will really miss the old version, will they?

A a a a a a a a a a a a

Maximum Ride: The Beginning

A a a a a a a a a a a

Angel pretended to be asleep as she was roughly carried like a sack of potatoes back to where she assumed her cage would be. She had regained consciousness as soon as this Eraser who had somehow still retained his ape-like appearance and demeanor, had picked her up off of the filthy floor. She'd been forced to run on that treadmill for hours, and every extremity ached with a dull pain. She wasn't meant to run, she was meant to fly. What sort of idiot wanted to see how far she could run if she could fly?

The Eraser paused for a moment. He seemed to be confused, and raised something in front of him with one arm before looking back up, then double-checking. He took a right instead of a left, Angel noted. They weren't heading back for her cage. Had the Eraser somehow gotten lost?

No, that was unlikely, because they stopped in front of a steel door a full minute later. It looked older, and smelled bad, but had the same room number as the one Angel had been in before. Angel remembered she was supposed to be unconscious and let her head fall back down against his shoulder. The Eraser froze again, read something out of the paper in his hand, looked at the door again. Angel took the opportunity to check her surroundings. The only security she saw was a single sleeping guard, well past its prime. The Eraser had apparently made up its mind before Angel could pay attention to much else. He opened the door quickly before throwing his cargo inside the pitch black room. The lights didn't turn on, and he made no motion to hit a light switch before slamming the door shut with a mumbled curse, bathing the whole room in total darkness.

Angel let herself collapse into the dark room like a rag doll, too tired to do much else. Her whole body was numb. '_Sadistic bastard'_ she thought to herself as she painfully pulled herself into a kneeling position and began massaging her sore leg muscles. They still felt like they were on fire. She waited for her eyes to adjust before she realized that everything pitch black, to the point that it was hopeless trying to adjust when there was absolutely no light to see with whatsoever.

Angel closed her eyes and began to focus on her other senses to get a feel for what was around her, thinking of how Iggy figured out his surroundings. Then she stiffened, gulping her air and holding her breath. She could hear someone else breathing. She wasn't alone.

Evidently, the room's other occupant had noticed the exact same thing she had. "Who's there?" it asked, beating her to the punch. The voice's owner was obviously male, fairly mature, meaning a good deal older than Angel, so she elected not to answer. She was more than a little scared. The voice sounded a tiny bit caught off guard, too, and so she wondered if opening the door had woken him up.

"I know you're in here, somewhere." What if they had they thrown her in with an eraser? Could she bluff and say she was one too? If she could, should she? Would it make things worse for her? The voice insisted. "I know you're here…you are still breathing," the voice said steadily. Angel held her breath in again, not realizing that she'd resumed breathing. A whole five seconds passed, which seemed to take an eternity. The voice began to speak again. "I know that you're in here. I woke up when I heard you hit the floor. And from what I heard, you need to work on your landings."

Angel couldn't help it. She giggled. "I knew there was someone in here!" The voice's owner said victoriously. Angel mentally berated herself for the slip. She'd forgotten what it was like here at the school. Life was all about not letting your guard down. If you let it down, you died, or gave the whitecoats what they wanted, which was just as bad, if not worse than dying.

"What's your name?" the voice asked, this time a little quieter. Of all the things that she'd been expecting to hear, that one had been pretty low on the list. She'd expected a bit more ranting, a bit more gloating about how oh-so-clever he was. Actual interest was…unexpected.

"Angel," she said after a pause.

"Nice." he commented to himself, just before he gave a short burst of unrestrained laughter. There was something about that laugh, something slightly not quite right. Angel tracked the boy's laugh to the corner on her right. "Now that is interesting." He sounded very amused over something she didn't understand.

"What's so funny?" she asked, turning towards where she assumed he was, a little angry at the stranger. She liked the name Angel.

"It's an irony. Two people with the names for departed souls meet," he said in one breath, previous mirth seemingly gone, along with the disconcerting laugh. "_My_ name is Ghost."

Angel laughed. "I guess that _is_ sort of funny. I'd hold out my hand for you to shake it, but I doubt you could find it. Still, it's nice to meet you." she joked back. She felt relieved that she had someone friendly to talk to, even if she couldn't see him. Things weren't so bad if she had someone to talk to. At least, that's what she kept telling herself.

A a a a a a a a a a a a a a

So ends my slightly shortened chapter one. Please review so I know what everyone thinks I need to change. I promise, the next chapters are all longer, so far up to 6,000 words.

The chapters will get longer. And probably much better. I've written this on an empty stomach, and this is really a first draft. It'll be revised and replaced with something a lot better when I get the time. (That'll be tomorrow. I just don't know when I'll get around to posting it).

I think I might make this a semi-crossover with another of James Patterson's novels, when the wind blows, and its sequel the lake house, both of which have a very similar plot (the main character is named 'Max' for starters).

I'm not sure where I got the idea for the name 'Ghost', but I think I got it from starcraft, which I played a long time ago as a little kid. I found the CD while I was trying to find a name, and the name sorta popped into my head.

PLEASE REVIEW!!!


	2. Escape Plans

Sorry this has taken me so long to update between chapters 2 and 3. Chapters 1 & 2 are being rewritten right now. I'm talking it over with my beta, and we're determining how to improve these first two chapters, because let's face it, they're horrible compared to the others.

Um…Okay, getting a few things straight. This takes place in the first book, just before the flock breaks out of The School for the second time. The OC does not resemble me, nor is he a good person by anyone's standards, and he doesn't fall in love with anyone. I don't write cheap, old and overdone story plots. It just isn't me.

There's a full year between chapter 2 and 3, so the story _does_ improve as you read on. Thanks to KrazyKatie for finding all my plot mistakes! Thanks to The Blue Smurf Bandit for correcting the typos earlier!

I chose to write this after James Patterson really butchered the story. I'd been writing a novel very similar to Maximum Ride. It was the first fiction I'd ever written (before I even knew about and so I was totally amazed when it came out. But since then, call me a snob or something, but I think he butchered the plot with a vengeance. So many loose ends! So much unnecessary fluff! I couldn't stand it. It needed a darker story, one where the enemy is smart and cunning, and the lines between friend and foe are often blurred.

I've been reading a lot of maximum ride fanfiction lately, too, to measure myself up. If you are going to try and write a fanfiction, I strongly suggest you read the story 'Maximum Ride Guide to Mary Sues.' Don't accuse me of making my OC too strong or anything, I've read the guide, and I'm taking it very much to heart. I wish others would do the same…

Chapter 2: Escape Plans

A a a a a a a a a a a a a a

"So, how'd you end up in here?" Ghost asked.

Angel huddled a bit. "I was…kidnapped." She said, hugging her knees to her chest further. It was cold in this room, and it was hard not to notice when deprived of her sense of sight the various other discomforts to be found in this room. Like the bad smell and taste of the stale air.

"Where were you kidnapped from?" asked Ghost. Talking was making her feel a little safer, a little warmer.

"Erasers. Came after us." she sniffed, tears starting to well up. "They took me from the lake house."

"What happened? It sounded like you had a decent living, if you were in a house and all." Ghost said wistfully. "Must have been nice."

Angel shook her head, as if it would lessen the memory any. "They attacked us. No warning. Just jumped out of the trees. Threw me in a bag and took off with me inside it." She sniffled.

She felt someone tap at her shoulder. How he knew where she was in the room was a mystery. She turned around, feeling the well-muscled but thin and wiry arm it belonged to. "I'm a bit to your right." He said. The hand felt her face and used what felt like a shirt sleeve to wipe off a tear. When the sleeve dropped, she felt for it in her lap and discovered that it was actually a scrap of cloth. "How-" she asked, drying her tears. She didn't know why, but drying her tears somehow stemmed their flow and made her feel a lot better.

"I ripped it off a scientist's white coat." He said guiltily before changing topics. "You said 'us,'" he said. "Are 'they,' whoever 'they' are, here too?"

"No," she said, dabbing it at her tears again. "I don't think so. I hope not, anyways. I wish no one was here. No whitecoats, no Erasers, no experiments. Why can't we all just find a home and stay there?"

"That's…an interesting idea. So I'm assuming you still have a home to go back to?" he asked, as if it was important in some way. "Or maybe others are waiting for you, assuming they didn't leave once they learned their location was found out?" Angel sensed something stir inside his mind when he said that. It was just a slight, momentary spike in his consciousness, and nothing she could get a solid fix on.

"I wouldn't say they're waiting." She said. "They're probably either here, or on their way."

"On their way because they chose to?"

Angel nodded in the darkness before she caught her self and muttered an affirmative. "I hope."

There was a full ten seconds of silence until he spoke again. "Well…then what do you say we try to get the hell out of here?" he asked.

"What?" Angel asked.

"Well, your friends are on their way, aren't they? We can't have them just walk into a trap, can we?" he asked. She paused, waiting for him to finish telling her what his plan was.

"No, I mean, how?" she explained.

"I've tried everything I can think of, and I've come up with a few great ways to get out. The only problem left is getting out of the door. There's no handle in here, and the door is made of solid steel. Once we're actually out of our cell, I think getting out will be pretty easy if we travel in a pair. I can make it look like I'm escorting you somewhere."

Angel's tears dried quickly. From the darkness of despair came tiny rays of hope. _Darkest just before dawn,_ she thought to herself. She focused her mind. There had to be something she could do…something to get them out. Some detail someone had missed. But like Ghost had said, brute force wasn't going to work against a door like the one holding them inside. If muscle had failed, then perhaps the mind would succeed. It helped that Angel's mind was probably the sharpest in existence. The difficulty of the task now weighed down on her. The last time they'd escaped, they'd had inside help, namely the once presumed deceased Jeb Batchelder. But she knew several factors were in her favor this time, among them being someone she hadn't even seen. Oh, and, as she expanded her mind, one tired guard who was getting some much needed sleep outside the cell.

"Hold on. I have an idea." She said, not listening for an answer before mentally reaching out to the guard sleeping outside the hallway. Angel had had the power to alter minds for a short while, perhaps a month ago she had really began to notice it. Of course, she had kept it to herself. Telepathy was one thing for Max and the others to handle, but control, albeit a weak and untested ability to suggest something to someone without their knowing…well, it might not go over so well.

Ghost didn't say anything, and let her concentrate. She concentrated hard, stretching out her conscious self even further. Max would not approve of her doing this. Then again, she was sure Max wouldn't mind if it was just someone from The School, and they were asleep. It wasn't like that person was doing anything important, she thought, putting aside her own doubts at the same time. She brushed against the guard's sleepy mind and established a small connection. Angel probed it gently. She didn't know what touching a person's mind too hard when the target was asleep would do to them, but she wasn't exactly eager to find out.

Angel slowly exerted control over the hapless watchman, who never even picked up on her presence until she'd firmly established herself in his mind. If anyone had been watching, they would have seen the man's eyelids drift open wearily. Any passerby would see the man stumble out of his stool, slowly and clumsily, as if very drunk, make his way towards one of the cell doors and then pause before it and, with agonizing slowness, reach out and unlock it before collapsing with a snore on the floor.

Ghost sat in the darkness, waiting to hear her idea, when the door suddenly clanked. He frowned. He'd tried every way of breaking down that door, but he'd never heard that sound unless someone on the outside was trying to get it open. He shielded his eyes just in time as the door swung in, letting in the first rays of light that Ghost had not seen for far too long, in his opinion. He tensed every muscle in his body, ready to feel an Eraser's firm grip take him by the shoulders and yank him to his feet. Instead, he saw Angel's silhouette stand and put her foot in the door before it could swing closed.

Slowly, his eyes stopped hurting so much and he cracked open his eyelids another millimeter. The world was still unbearably white, but he could vaguely make out figures, one of which was the distinctive blue uniform of the hall guard lying semi-conscious in the hallway. Ghost stumbled to his feet and lurched for the guard. If the guard recovered and turned on his radio, then the escape would be foiled before it had even gotten underway. Before he could reach out and get a fistful of the guard's uniform, however, Angel grabbed him by the wrist and spoke.

"Let's go," she said softly. Ghost gave a wary glance to the guard, who settled himself back onto the floor. He grabbed the shoe of the guard and gently gave a pull, dragging him into their cell. Payback was sweet. Ghost stared in disbelief at the now open until he felt Angel's hand wrap around his arm. He slowly turned to face her, as if reluctant to leave the mysteriously opening door. The surprise he'd shown earlier would be nothing compared to the way he was going to stare at her wings, which were folded behind her dirt and sweat stained shirt, even though he said nothing. There would be time to explain everything later.

"You just-"

"Yes, I know, I just knocked him out, but we need to _move_," she said impatiently, putting a bit of emphasis on the word. "You said you had a way out of here."

That snapped Ghost out of his haze, though he still spared a glance backwards to make sure the guard was really asleep as he grabbed Angel by the arm and sprinted down the hallway as fast as he could.

A a a a a a a a a a a a a

Ghost was scared of Angel…but he didn't want to admit it. Another fact he didn't want to admit was that Angel was the only reason that they'd managed to avoid every patrol so far. Ghost was panting heavily. They'd been on the move for more than five minutes, and every 'break' in which they hid he was forced to hold his breath. The stress was getting to him, too. He never knew when he'd round a corner and come face-to-face with a squad of Erasers that had somehow caught onto their mysterious and totally unplanned escape. But Angel seemed to somehow know when danger was coming, and had kept them out of sight with an uncanny accuracy.

They shot down the mostly empty hallways, their soft, shoeless footsteps barely audible against the tile, moving quickly. Angel spared him a curious glance. He had recovered quickly for someone who had been about to attack a sleepwalking guard half-blindly only a few minuets prior. Now he was keeping pace with her, and she felt that he was holding back. Angel stopped suddenly, and Ghost quickly slid to a halt. His eyes scanned both ends of the hallway for any evident threat, but didn't see anything.

Without a word, Angel sprinted back the way they'd come. Ghost ran as fast as his legs could carry him, thinking she'd somehow detected something again. He intended to ask her about that later, when they were far away from here and somewhere safe. She rounded the intersection that they had passed only seconds before and took the corner down another hallway. Ghost spared one last look over his shoulder before rounding the corner, and almost barreled into Angel, who had stopped in front of a nondescript looking door. She stared at intently, as if her stare would somehow melt off the handle.

She leaned into Ghost and beckoned. He leaned down and she whispered into his ear. "There's a guard in there, but we need to get inside. Can you take care of him for me?"

Ghost hesitated. "Is it an Eraser?" he asked. Angel shook her head. "Then I think I can handle it," Ghost said, shifting his eyes down both the hallways. Anywhere was better than in the middle of a hallway. He was surprised that they hadn't encountered a scientist or eraser yet.

"Get ready," she said, placing her hand on the door. Angel knew that Ghost wanted to ask her a million questions, like why the guard here wasn't asleep and why he was inside the cell rather than outside.

Angel pulled down on the handle, pushed the door open, and leapt aside as fast as she could. Ghost bounded inside and swung a closed fist at the man's face with far more force than was necessary to knock someone unconscious. The man had just finished turning around to see it only inches from his face before the impact snapped his head back violently. The guard hit the floor, definitely unconscious, and possibly dead. She swore she heard the cracking of bones. Angel looked up at Ghost in shock. The whole thing had happened in less than a second. She'd only asked that he restrain the man, not kill him. But he didn't seem to mind the excess at all. In fact, he closed his fist again, flexing it, and smiled at her proudly.

"Got him," he said, as if there was nothing wrong. He stopped grinning when he turned, however, to see what, or, to be precise, who else was in the room. It was the flock, each put in individual steel-wire cages. Each was regarding Ghost carefully, who was returning the look with an equal amount of curiosity.

"Um…Angel, who is that?" Max asked.

A a a a a a a a a a a a a

After a full minute of introductions and shortened explanations, the flock was completely out of their cages, stretching their limbs and examining one another.

"The halls are really quiet," Ghost commented, eying the guard, as if he would get up at any moment. Angel seriously doubted it. Ghost had hit him hard enough to leave the man in a coma, but she wasn't about to call anyone paranoid while they were in this place.

"That makes sense. It's five in the morning," Gasman said, checking the unconscious guard's watch. "If the hallways get crowded all of a sudden, then our escape's become common knowledge."

"Oh, that makes me feel better," Max said sarcastically, rolling her eyes while massaging her arms.

"Ghost said that he had a plan, and I'm yet to actually hear the details." Angel said.

"It'll be hard sneaking all of us out. My plans were kind of stretched at two. I don't think we'll be able to fit seven." Ghost said, concerned.

"We're dead," Gasman said glumly.

"Angel, exactly how did you get brought here? I mean, by truck?" Ghost asked.

Angel shrugged, a little embarrassed. "I got put in a bag and taken here by a helicopter. They only let me out after they brought me inside. I didn't see anything."

Gazzy snapped his fingers. "That's it!"

"What's it?" asked Iggy, full of sarcastic hope. "You mean we aren't doomed?"

"We can use the helipad on the roof!" he said. "It's the best place!"

"A helipad," Max said, obviously thinking it over. "Yeah, that will work, except no one here is a pilot, and I don't think we're faster than a helicopter."

"Okay, but what if we break some stuff in them? Like the control sticks?" Fang asked.

"Or we could just reach under the hood and smash stuff up," Iggy suggested.

Nudge grinned. "Well, I guess that will secure a getaway. Like in that movie-"

"But what about you?" Angel asked, turning to Ghost.

"You let me worry about that." Ghost said. "I've got this part down pat." Once again, he looked down at the guard he'd knocked unconscious. "But I think we need a disguise."

A a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a

So, for those of you who are new, what do you think of the new version? I got rid of some of the OOC, toned down Ghost's role in things, and got rid of a few _more_ typos. It's about 200 words shorter, so that means I stripped it of a lot of unnecessary parts.

Interestingly, I updated chapter 2 (this chapter) before I did chapter 1. If anyone notices anything else that's wrong, private message/review. There is a reward for doing so. And you get a free mention (unless you don't want one).

Please leave a review, they make me smile and put me in a good mood for a few days. I like being happy.

Uh, I rewrote it at 1:00 in the morning. (that's when I started). Amazingly, thanks to a _Monster_ energy drink, a little adrenaline, and a thing of chocolates, I'm more or less awake. Amazing. Uh, I'm gonna rewrite these first two again, taking more time. When I have it. Classes start soon, you see, and I'm packing now.


	3. I Would Have Been Your Daddy

Musical inspiration by: Firefly (intro theme), For What It's Worth, and a few other songs.

To my devoted (alright, not so devoted after all) readers:

I am truly sincerely sorry for the humongous delay and false promises of a more recent update. There's been finals, writer's cramp, and conflicts with the plot of the original Maximum Ride. Plus, I've been having a hard time determining the fate of the OC.

I have decided to make the OC…different than before. It has more influence in the end, but for most of the story stays totally out of sight. He won't even be with the flock in most chapters.

My inspiration for picking this back up was my opinion that the new Maximum Ride book… well, it was bad. Sadly, most authors of trilogy series have left too many loose ends open and feel pressured to bring everything to a close. They also fail miserably in this regard, and that's great stuff for fan fictions. Again, some of James Patterson's ideas and my own seemed to be close together. I like to think that they're some of his better ideas. Some of his more…offlandish, somewhat idealistic ideas I'm totally ignoring.

**Spoiler alert for Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports**: A clone of Max, or the whole flock? Robotic Erasers? Itex overthrown by a bunch of kids with nothing better to do than listen to an anonymous blog? The elimination of perfectly good Erasers in favor of seemingly useless drone copies? Okay, those were all things I did not even consider.

**End spoilers for Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports**

By the way, Thanks a lot XIII Dragon for all your help. You've done a lot, and I really appreciate the nitpicking. It's the minor details that I need a lot of help on, and I'll be doing a bit of dialogue correction. If anything sounds cheesy, wrong, or inaccurate, then PLEASE tell me.

Chapter 4

I Would Have Been Your Daddy

The flock plus Ghost made their way down the hallway. "I can't believe this is working," said Nudge quietly. The whole flock was shaking inside, but they projected no worry at all. I was extremely proud.

"Quiet," hissed Fang as they rounded the corner. A whitecoat looked over the small group with mild interest, then went back to his clipboard full of charts. Everyone collectively sighed in relief.

The group consisted of two security officers, Fang and I each carrying utility belts, complete with guns, Angel and Ghost as two prisoners, and Iggy with Gazzy and Nudge posing as three Erasers backing up the tiny group.

"So, we're all clear on the plan?"

"Get to the rooftops, hide Angel in a corner while everyone else does as much damage as they can to the helicopters. When something hits the fan, we're out of there to make sure we don't get splattered," Gazzy said imitating me.

I resisted the urge to call him a smartass because just then an Eraser rounded the corner. Fortunately, he didn't even seem to notice us, and again we gave off another sigh. "How much further?" whispered Nudge.

"Don't know," I answered.

"It should be just ahead," Ghost said. "Express elevator. Should take us straight to the helipad, no other stops allowed on the way up, in case of emergencies."

"You know if anyone spots us escorting prisoners to the roof, there's going to be a lot of questions." Fang pointed out. "What if Jeb's up there?"

"I don't want to hang around to answer them," I said. "Thanks, Ghost, for helping us," I said. I didn't know what to think of Ghost. There'd been no explanations. Hell, Angel didn't even say how they'd met. What if he was an Eraser? What if at the top of the elevator was a squad of Erasers, headed by none other than Ari himself?

"Don't mention it," he answered. This didn't help me figure out his intentions much, and it raised more questions than it answered.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I don't mean to pry," Iggy said, cutting me off. "But I have a feeling that getting us out of here…it isn't in your best interests. You didn't have to bring back extra uniforms. You could have disappeared into that supply closet and disappeared on us. You also gave us your escape route, even though you know that if there's any cameras in the elevator then we're screwed."

"Perceptive of you," he answered. His voice had dropped a little in warmth, and was a little cooler now. It sent tiny icy pinpricks up my spine. He motioned towards the elevator button, and it opened instantly. "Let's just say I've got my reasons."

"What do you mean? What do you want to get done?" I asked, confused and slightly wary, stepping into the elevator.

"I thought you didn't mean to pry. So don't."

"Actually, that was just me who didn't want to pry. I didn't say anything about her," Iggy joked as the door slid closed. It wasn't even close to a squeeze. I could only imagine pilots taking this elevator to their choppers, all scrambling to catch us. I then grinned as I imagined the looks on their faces when they found out that their precious helicopters would no longer fly. "But it's just that we were…sort of betrayed last time we had help escaping from here,"

I quickly filled him in on Jeb's betrayal while we rode the elevator to the top. By the end of it, he had a sort of far away look to his face I couldn't place. I turned to Angel, who only shrugged.

The elevator finished going up. We all took a breath, even Ghost. To his credit, there was no one waiting for us on the other side. The hangar was mostly empty. Helicopters lay about the hangar, totally unattended. I grinned. "Time to get messy," I said.

Iggy's face lit up at the prospect of getting his hands on machinery. I couldn't think of a better way to screw up a machine than to let a blind pyromaniac kid play around with its insides.

Only a few people were in the hangar at all, and they were otherwise occupied on something in their corner. Angel and Ghost were shuffled off to the darkest corner quickly, and Fang opened the locks to their handcuffs.

We split up and began to work on the helicopters. The Erasers in the hangar were all on the opposite side of the hangar, so I opened the door that wasn't facing them and reached inside. I cracked the stick for the control first. I then began twisting buttons off and cracked the LCD screen the pilot must have used for navigation. The hood was also open, so I jammed the control stick into the engine and used it as a pry bar until something inside snapped quietly. I looked up, but none of the Erasers seemed interested. I grinned as I took the buttons and fed them into the gas tank.

I then used the control stick to sever several tubes and punctured the oil tank. _That should keep them off our tails for some time_ I thought, congratulating myself on my handiwork. I made my way over to the next helicopter.

This one didn't have is hood open, but that didn't stop me from snapping the control stick off again and this time prying loose the screen that protected the instruments. I also found that the seat was hardly what I would call properly attached to the floor of the helicopter. I compounded the problem by popping loose the tiny screws keeping it secured. I then found that almost nothing was between the instrument panel I'd torn up and the engine, and poked around with the control stick, pulling wires and other things loose. I figured I'd done enough and left the stick inside the cockpit. I looked around the hangar. The last helicopter was being sabotaged by Fang, who was almost invisible underneath the undercarriage. I turned back to the Erasers. They weren't there. I checked on Ghost and Angel. Both were still two dark shadows in the far corner. So if they hadn't been found…

I saw it out of the corner of my eye a second before it was too late. Two Erasers snarled at me and began morphing simultaneously. A morphed Eraser- one who is fully transformed- is something extremely dangerous to face in close quarters combat. Two of them made it all the worse, and I was in a place that had a roof over my head, so I couldn't fly. I was screwed. I could take one of them out, I knew. From there, I had to hope the others arrived in time.

I leapt from the helicopter with both feet out, hitting one in the chest before it had finished morphing. I landed and grabbed the fallen one and threw him against the helicopter. He smashed against it with a loud BANG, and then fell to the concrete. I had no time to celebrate this particular victory, however, as his partner had finished morphing and smashed a closed fist against my face as I turned to face him. I hadn't been entirely expecting him to morph that quickly- apparently The School kept upgrading them faster and faster nowadays. He loomed over me, a wolf's equivalent of a smile spread across his features as he stepped closer. Then, a wrench appeared over his head. The two objects collided with a crunch SO satisfying I doubted even a Snickers bar could come close. The Eraser's eyes rolled into the back of his head.

I shook my head clear of cobwebs, but suddenly a feral growl alerted me to a new danger. But the danger wasn't directed towards me, but the one who had saved me. The Eraser I thought I'd dealt with (apparently they were made tougher now too!) tackled Ghost at the waist and brought him down. I struggled to stand, but something about the blow to my head made me stagger and grab the helicopter for support as it swam in circles.

Ghost rolled backwards, standing quickly and delivering a slow but powerful blow to the jaw of the Eraser, whose head snapped back. Ghost didn't let up, though. He continued to lay into the Eraser with everything he had, pounding powerful blows into the Eraser, refusing to give it time to recover. I couldn't believe the power behind each attack, each punch and kick echoing in the concrete chamber. The Eraser rebounded every time, though, and got in a good hit or two that made me flinch. But Ghost seemed to be holding his own, amazingly, against a fully morphed Eraser. Finally, the Eraser feinted a counter, and charged, trying to force Ghost onto the ground. In a battle of brute strength, Erasers always had a _huge_ advantage over every other type of recombinant I'd ever seen. There was a reason The School kept them as enforcers. Whatever type of recombinant Ghost was, it was clear he was built to take punishment and keep dishing it out in spades.

He grabbed the Eraser, putting one hand against its bleeding face, the other against its chest, and backpedaled, boots skidding on the floor as he dug in. To my shock, the Eraser was being held back. Both were grunting and groaning, each trying to gain the advantage, arms bulging and quaking with exertion. The Eraser was trying to get Ghost in a bear hug, and Ghost was trying to keep the Eraser off of him. Ghost suddenly fell backwards, and the Eraser was on top of him. I pushed myself off the helicopter and stumbled towards him. I might not be much help, but I'd be damned if I was going to just let him get killed after he saved my butt.

But the Eraser suddenly went flying over, past Ghost, courtesy of a well-placed boot to the stomach. The Eraser crashed into the concrete wall a few feet away and slowly got up. Ghost tried to stand, but faltered, stumbling backwards on his back leg until finally it gave out entirely on him and he was down on one knee.

He looked up at me, startled expression on his face. He looked many times worse than the Eraser, now that I got a look at him. Small scratches went straight through the tough fabric of the jacket he wore, and even his face had several angry red streaks. He was sweating and panting far worse than the Eraser, and had an ugly gash on the back of his shin on the leg he'd used to throw the Eraser over him.

He stood up and bent over, slightly favoring one leg as he did, grunting. He yanked off his belt and tied it around his leg and its cut flesh, pulling up the pant leg a bit to use the fabric to help stem the bleeding. He gasped in pain, but stood up anyways. The Eraser was faster, and was about to get on top of Ghost but Fang appeared and proceeded to finish what Ghost had started with amazing speed, tackling the Eraser and then stomping it into the ground. The Eraser, tough as it was, could take no more and seemed to decide enough was enough and stopped moving.

No sooner had Ghost managed to stand than the alarms started blaring. Red lights flashed, and the whole building seemed to come alive. "Move!" I shouted. No one complained, and Ghost limped after us. One after the other, the flock took to the air, except Ghost and I. He turned to face me. "Protect your own, Max. I'm not coming with you, and I don't think you'll ever see me alive again. So thanks. Your escape will be a good distraction for me to do what I should have done a long time ago."

"I don't understand."

"You don't have to. For once, it has nothing to do with you, Maximum Ride."

"How did you even know-"

Before I'd even finished the sentence, he had stripped off his hospital gown to reveal a security officer's uniform beneath, complete with pistol. I wondered how I hadn't noticed the uniform or the belt's bulge under his hospital uniform earlier. He now looked like almost every other security officer in The School now. He smiled sadly at me. "I'm really sorry, but you have to go now. Good luck," he said.

He then, without warning, pushed me off the building's ledge. I instantly lost altitude, and forced myself into a dive to keep from stalling, then pulled up, flapping hard to gain altitude. When I was more than a hundred feet above The School, I turned my head back and looked. Erasers were pouring out from every exit now, pointing and shouting. Ghost took notice and stepped to the edge. He looked up, and with my bird vision, I noticed him smile and step off the edge.

_Oh God_ I thought. I didn't want to watch the landing. But instead of simply falling, he spread a pair of bright white wings from beneath the uniform, and began a clumsy descent. _So he IS an Avian-Human hybrid. _It was painfully obvious to me, from all the wobbling and instability that Ghost was a poor flyer…and his unceremonious to the earth below confirmed it. He got to one knee and withdrew his wings back beneath the shirt, zipping it up to help hide them even more. He disappeared inside the building without looking back.

_Good luck to you too_. I gained altitude back towards the flock. We had a lot of ground to cover, and we had to do it quickly. I wondered how he knew my full name. All I'd introduced myself as was 'Max.'

Ignoring the pain in my busted leg, I jogged my way down the hallway. I knew _exactly_ which room I wanted to go to. No one bothered to spare me a second glance- everyone else was running, too. The whole building was in a mad rush, like a hornet's nest that had been hit with a rock. It was no small bit of amusement to me that I was the cause of so much mayhem, and here I was, still inside the place. Still, it wouldn't be that way for long. I was here for a reason, to accomplish one thing. Probably the last thing I would ever do. I found my thoughts wandering as I made my way towards my destination.

This had nothing to do with the flock. It had nothing to do with Maximum Ride, no matter what she believed. I unbuttoned the holster and withdrew the gun that rested inside. Adrenaline and pain nullifiers would only keep me on my feet for so long, so I had to be fast, no matter how much I wanted it to be slow and painful. I clicked the safety off, and stared at the plaque at the door.

_Jeb Batchelder…you are going to pay…_

I tried the handle, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the door was unlocked. Without waiting another second, I shoved the door open and followed it, leveling the gun at Jeb's face as I did. "Jeb Batchelder!" I growled loudly.

Jeb looked up from his computer, eyebrows raised. The office had changed little since I had last been inside, although they had replaced the old blue carpet with a pearly white one, and an oriental rug covered the middle. A few potted plants were placed along the walls, which I suspected were plastic. The giant oak desk was totally unchanged. The paperwork looked like it was in the exact same place, too.

"Well, Ghost, I have to say this is quite a surprising turn of events."

"Cut the chatter, Jeb. You're about to die."

"I have to say, I am quite impressed at how well you managed to destroy what plans the powers that be have set for Max. You have just upset some very powerful people. But let me ask you this: how do you plan on getting out of here alive?"

"Max, Max, Max. Is that all you ever think about?" I asked, disgusted. He was so hung up on her. He always used to go on and on about how great she was. Yes, she was amazing, but that's hardly news after two minuets of announcing it for the first time. "This isn't about Max. You and I have unfinished business, Jeb, in case you've forgotten. And as for getting out alive…I don't plan on it."

"You came here to die?" Jeb asked, curious. "Is that what you truly want? To join-"

"Finish that statement, I dare you," I snarled, motioning with the gun. "Now, get out from behind that desk."

"Or you will do what, Ghost? Kill me? If you must know, setting Max and the others free didn't change a whole lot, even if they were supposed to get out on their own."

I was about to answer that, but I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. Something big was coming at me. I barely spun before the Eraser standing in the corner of the room had smashed me against the open door. Several bones popped loudly, with the growl of the Eraser and my yelp of pain the only other noise in the room. Another Eraser yanked the pistol out of my pinned hand and pointed it at my head.

Jeb's voice was quiet, but cut through the action like the knife he so often used. "Enough." Both Erasers exchanged a look, and backed away warily. I stayed crouched, coughing wetly. I spat blood onto his new oriental carpet. My eyes locked on Jeb Batchelder's, and both our features contorted, one in anger, the other in mild disgust.

The Eraser closed the door and locked it. "I have to say I'm a little disappointed in you. You used to be so cautious. Yet you didn't even close the door behind you."

I tried and failed to stand on my own. Jeb held out a hand next to the Eraser, who turned the gun over to him without a second thought. Erasers tended to prefer tearing their victims apart piece by piece instead of shooting them. "Now Ghost, I hope you realize exactly how much damage you've just done. Max and the others were going along the path they were supposed to. And then _you_ showed up, thanks entirely to a mistake. Needless to say, the person who has made that mistake has been…retired. But you are a factor we never took into account. Now things may go totally off course."

I gasped for breath through my battered lungs. I was still having trouble breathing. "Jeb Batchelder," I said, wheezing. "I am someone who neither you nor anyone else could control. And now I've screwed something up for you, haven't I? I didn't figure into your plans, and you didn't like that. You love control. And you hate me because you know that there's no way to fix whatever it is I've done."

"You're wrong, Ghost. There is a way to undo the damage. But I'm afraid you can't be a part of the solution. I believe the saying goes, 'if you're not a part of the solution…'"

"I never would be, Jeb. Anything you ever try to do, I will fight it. You are truly evil for what you did to your own family. You turned your son into a mindless killer, and-"

"Your usefulness has come to an end, _Prototype_," he uttered the last word like a deadly insult. I reeled back, as if I had been slapped. His face was a stone mask as he raised the pistol and took careful aim with the same skill he had with a scalpel.

"To hell with you, Batchelder!" I bit out through the pain, tightening my muscles and struggling to step towards him, to give one last effort of resistance against the man whom I despised. The gun went off with a roar, and I fell to the floor.

A a a a a a a

The gunshot echoed in the tiny room as the bullet hit Ghost right where Jeb wanted to. Ghost's pearly white wings dropped a second after the body, gently falling with a quiet rustling whisper to fold over his back before becoming tainted red with blood. The boy struggled with the last of his strength, managing only to use his right arm to push himself up to stare up at Jeb with a cloudy expression. His whole body relaxed, head falling back to the floor as the blood began pooling quickly around his prone body, the carpet soaking it like a sponge.

"Goodbye, Ghost. I am so sorry," Jeb said softly, regretfully. He stepped around the body and calmly walked outside the room, beckoned the two Erasers to follow him and shut the door after them, leaving Ghost's body inside. The Erasers looked back at Jeb's office nervously. "Sir…should we have someone clean up the body?"

"No, I will deal with it myself," Jeb said confidently. The two Erasers exchanged a look, but said nothing. The doctors, especially ones as important as Dr. Batchelder, always got what they wanted.

A a a a a a a a a

I lay on the carpeted floor with a wicked grin. I knew everything that I needed to now. It was all coming together with Jeb's single lack of action. Everything started making sense to me. No wonder the flock hadn't figured it out yet- they had grown up their entire lives on the inside of the maze of confusion, and been kept preoccupied with daily tasks like survival. But to a newcomer…it was obvious. I almost laughed, but the bullet _had_ hit me. But it had missed all my vital organs. And even the bleeding had almost stopped completely.

Jeb had missed. He'd taken careful aim and shot directly between my shoulder and my heart. I'd fallen on my broken ankle and collapsed, playing dead. But Jeb knew he'd missed, and left him lying there anyways. Anyone trained in medicine knew where the heart was. So obviously he wanted me alive. But why? For what reason? It made me mad for some reason. He should have killed me! Had he missed, waiting for those two goons to tear me apart later? But no, Jeb wasn't sadistic… he was scientific, willing to make sacrifices that at first seemed cruel, but he had never done anything vile for the fun of it. So there had to be a reason for him to keep me around.

Maybe Jeb wanted me to continue to mess up whatever path The School had had laid out for Max and the flock. If so, it seemed that Jeb was quite at ends with The School. And now he was forcing me to make a choice. Which did I hate more? Jeb Batchelder, or The School? It was a hard choice, considering what Jeb had done. What mattered more, what did I want more? Did I want to throw a monkey wrench in The School's plans, or did I want revenge on Jeb?

The School would have to go first, I decided. I could kill Jeb later. Despite only meeting the flock for ten minutes, it looked like Jeb had somehow managed to manipulate everything so that I was irrevocably on their side. And apparently now on Jeb's side, too.

But was Jeb now really an ally? Was this simply a ploy for him to gain more power? If thus was the case, he wouldn't live long to regret leaving me alive here. Once The School was gone, Jeb Batchelder would soon be next.

In addition to letting me live, he'd given me one important clue; removing me from the flock would let The School try and fix whatever damage I'd done to The School's plans for the flock's future. By not killing me, Jeb had essentially said that he didn't approve of whatever it was The School had been planning for Max and the others. And somehow, in the time span of ten minuets, I had met the flock and had caused a lot of trouble for The School.

But how had I caused trouble? What had I done to influence the flock? Well, they hadn't had guns before we'd met, I guess. I'd retrieved them from the locker room, as part of the disguise? I had taught them a few things, mostly pointers on how to blend in when traveling in a group to keep your eyes on each other, pretending to ignore everyone around you, but those skills were nothing vitally important, right? And killing me wouldn't make them forget how to use a gun or blend into a crowd. So what was it? Had I gotten them out ahead of some sort of timetable? I recalled their story of how Jeb had gotten them out earlier, as part of a test, it would seem. Was that the plan

After more than a minute of lying still on the floor, I gave up. Whatever I'd done was done. It was inconsequential if I did it again- the damage had been done. The only real thing was to keep them from going back to the way they were before.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. _If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem_, Jeb had said. So removing the problem was the first step for them to change the flock back to the way they were, which was bad, because the problem so happened to be me. As long as I continued to live, The School would continue to have trouble manipulating the flock. If so, I had to get back to them as fast as I could. And finding them would _not_ be easy.

I picked myself up using my unhurt arm. I had to make myself scarce, and do it fast. The keys Jeb had left on the edge of his desk would certainly help a lot. How considerate of the former bastard, now dear ally. My, how things could change in such a short time. I crawled towards the desk, slowly pulling myself up, using it for support. So that was it then. The die had been cast, and I had ended up supporting the man I'd sworn to kill. _I'm sorry. I didn't kill Jeb. I can't kill him. Not yet, but soon my brothers and sisters. Soon he will die._

Alright, sorry for the uber long wait. At the rate I'm going, it's practically an update once a year. That's pathetic, since most of the chapters are written by now. Unfortunately, they're all on different machines. This is a new one (laptop), an old macintosh, my dad's laptop, and my old (still busted with a bad power source) PC. I decided that all my rewrites were going nowhere new, and were flawed in major places, so I dropped a few of them off. The story is a little shorter now, and has less of the OC in it (I mentioned this before).

Now as I promised, Ghost will not be appearing in many chapters. Out of sight, not totally out of Max's mind. She may continue to wonder about when he's going to show up. In case you're wondering about the chapter title, I needed one, and 'the great escape' was pretty lame. So I decided to take a page from _Halo_. Sue me.

This was supposed to be two chapters, but I figured I'd simply leave him out for one extra chapter and give you guys a break. I've still got to edit the last part of this…if anyone finds anything confusing, redundant, or not clear, please, PLEASE point it out to me. This last part contains hints for the future, and sets up the plot, so it's vital I get it absolutely right, and absolutely shiny.


	4. Miscommunication and Mistrust

Alright, I've officially broken m 10,000 words for a single story! I feel fairly proud of myself. I'm exhausted from a massive headache, and I can't seem to get rid of it using aspirin. The OC is not going to rejoin The Flock in this chapter. He won't rejoin the flock in the next chapter either. Or the one after that. Got it?

Oh, and please send me more reviews! I just surpassed my first fan fiction in terms of sheer numbers. I'd give my thanks out to people, but this update is only a few days after my last one, so no one gave me any reviews between. I'll have to give thanks for both this chapter and the previous one next time.

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The flock seemed to be in pretty good spirits when I joined them almost half a minute later. "Finally, we're out of there!" cheered Nudge. She stretched, soaking up the sun. 

Gazzy gave a whoop and did a barrel roll, almost knocking Iggy out of the sky in the process, who was too busy cheering with Fang and the others to really notice or care. The joy was somewhat infectious, and I was about to join them when I noticed that Angel was the only one who wasn't joining in. In fact, she seemed to be hanging back from the rest of the flock.

"Angel?" I asked. It took her a second to pull her head up and answer me. She wasn't quite smiling, but I knew she was trying. Something had her upset, and I mean _really_ upset.

"Huh?" she asked, brushing stray flapping golden hairs out of her face.

"What's wrong honey?" I asked, concerned. Seriously, when Angel was upset, things were about to go bad in very short order. As Iggy once said: 'if Angel ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.'

She shrugged. "Where's Ghost?" She asked, looking behind me, as if she was going to see him flying behind me.

I sighed. "He stayed behind. He said that he had something to do."

"So, we won't see him again?"

"I guess not," I said. I was tempted to add a little something along the lines of 'sorry, but he made his choice' to try and make her understand. She seemed to trust Ghost a lot for someone who wasn't in the flock. He had flat out refused to answer questions and seemed to know too much, but she had still entrusted him with all our lives, so I guessed she had developed some sort of friendship with him between the time that she had been captured and when we had made our escape. I just hoped for her sake that he was alright.

"Good," she said. Her demeanor seemed to brighten a bit, as if something she'd been worried about no longer mattered. I did a double take and almost forgot to flap. Wishing someone to School was essentially wishing them to Hell. No, wait, on second thought Hell didn't perform experiments on you and graft body parts onto you at will. At least I hoped not.

"Why?" I finally asked. Angel had seemed content enough to have him lead us through the hallways, as if she trusted him implicitly, and had never even said anything to counter his advice. It was as if she had admired him, I had thought. Evidently, she didn't. "What's wrong with Ghost?"

"He was…" she frowned again, searching for the right words. It was something the little super genius very rarely did. "Off. His mind was different than everyone else's, maybe darker? There was something wrong with him, the way he thought. It was as if he was half here, and at the same time not."

Huh?

"I can show you what I saw if you want," she added brightly to my apparently open confusion.

"Uh…maybe later," I said lamely. When a telepath offered to 'show' you something, you had to make sure that A) you trusted that person completely to go and muck around in your head, and that B) it was an appropriate time. As while I trusted Angel on a lot of things, my mind was sort of personal property. Plus, right now was not one of those appropriate times, not with me midair and still so close to the school. Not that I wanted to ever be this close to The School. "Now let's catch up with the rest of the flock," I suggested. This certainly put a new spin on the situation, and not a very good one.

"Okay," she said, seemingly happy again. "When do we land?" she asked only a second later as we pulled up to the flock in regular formation.

"When we get tired. Why, are you getting tired yet?" I teased lightly.

"A little," she confessed. "They don't feed you well in there. And I never got any rest from earlier, so I'm a little sore. They made me run for _hours_. They just don't understand that hard work means we need more food."

"Hey, they just don't understand what it means to have a black hole for a stomach," I said, thinking of the incredible amount of food the flock could pack away. We were worse than a swarm of locusts, and woe to any buffet that dared display the words 'all you can eat.' I looked over to Angel. She didn't seem to be exhausted- not yet, anyways, and I was willing to fly my flock as far as they could haul their collective asses away from The School, even if it meant we were all exhausted the next day. The further away we were from The School when they finally got their helicopters to work, the better. "Just a little further, okay? I'd like for there to be a bit more distance between The School and ourselves."

"Okay," Angel said. "But what are we going to do about food? We can't scavenge in the dark, it's too dangerous."

Oops. I'd forgotten that while Ghost had given us our backpacks back from the supply room, they were empty of non-perishable goods, like granola bars, plus a few other items. The School figured we wouldn't need them anymore, so they'd naturally taken them. Interestingly, this was the biggest setback we had been faced with so far in our escape. We could keep going into the night and be way further from The School, but we wouldn't have any food to get us very far in the morning, which could be somewhat dangerous. We needed to be at 100 to fight. Foraging in the night was dangerous, as Angel had said. Coyotes, wolves, and bears sometimes were fairly common in the woods, and a general lack of what we might otherwise eat made night hunting more trouble than it was worth. Or we could risk landing in the daylight, cooking our food, and then taking off again…but still being in the search range of the helicopters, if they got repaired any time soon, which they probably would be. They would have no problem seeing the smoke from whatever campfire we made to cook the meals, too. And then we would be in _real_ trouble, well fed or not.

Hunting in the dark was not a good idea, either. _Wait a second_ I thought. I looked down to my new utility belt. Inside one of the pockets was a flashlight. "We will just have to go hunting with flashlights. Did you know a deer stays dead still when headlights are pointing at it?" I asked, remembering the random factoid from an even more random book.

Everyone looked at me curiously. "So we're going to kill a deer?" Nudge asked.

"Pretty much. Plants are about the only other thing we can probably get at night, and we can't find them very easily in the dark." Fang explained for me.

"But still…I remember watching Bambi. We saw it only last month, remember?"

"Angel, we're sort of doing this for our survival," Iggy said. "Besides, not a lot of other animals are willing to stand around when spotted.

"But why not catch a fish, or a rabbit?" Nudge asked.

_Finding Nemo and Peter Cottontail_, I thought to myself. "Because they're not out during the night. And I'm not fishing in the dark."

"Can we stop discussing what we're having for dinner? You're making me hungry. We haven't eaten all day," Gazzy chipped in.

"We can give hunting at night a shot. We might not even find anything, in which case we go hungry," I said. "Angel, Nudge, and Iggy can hold down the fort and prepare the fire while we hunt."

"But I'm hungry _now_," Gazzy said lowly.

"We all are, Gazzy." Iggy said distractedly. "Where's Ghost?" Iggy finally asked me. It was the second time he'd asked me the question.

"I don't know," I said. "He…he didn't come with us. He said he had something to deal with first." Of course, that was about clear as mud.

"What?" Nudge asked in a disbelieving voice. "What the heck is so important to you that would make you wnat to stick around The School? He must be crazy!"

"Maybe he was trying to find information against the school, or maybe he forgot something," Gazzy said weakly. He then shrugged. "Nah, that wouldn't be it. Nudge is right, he's gotta be nuts!"

"It's kinda suspicious," Fang finally said. "I mean, it would be if he gets out of there in one piece."

"Maybe he's got a flock!" Nudge said brightly. I thought about it. It did make sense. We had all risked our collective lives just to save Angel, only one of our flock. And Angel, once free, had saved us. Yes, there was a considerable amount of irony in that, but we still all looked out for one another. "Aw, man, if that's true, then I can't wait to meet them all! It would be so cool!"

"But why didn't he set them free while he was with us?" I asked. Maybe what Angel had told me had made me paranoid.

"Well, if you recall, the alarms went off just as you finished sabotaging the helicopters. Maybe he knew we were on a time budget, and wanted to secure his flock's getaway. We wouldn't have gotten very far if those helicopters were already airborne by the time we left. Besides, with the base in total disarray, it would be pretty easy for him to get around," Fang answered. I marveled at his strategic genius. There was a future General or Police Officer in him, if only the Army or Police ever decided to accept genetic freaks into their ranks, which they wouldn't, and that was a damn shame because he wouldn't look that bad in uniform. I quickly erased the last thought, and decided to focus on more…relevant things at hand.

Things like my headache. It was one of those things that built slowly, hard to notice at first. All I know is that I had started getting them on and off ever since I'd had that unpleasant visit from Jeb while I'd still been caged. Was I sick? Could I be sick? It had never really happened to me before. Nudge and Gazzy had both quieted down, and so that left me with a great big zero for usual suspects. I was completely miffed. The only other thing I could think of was a lack of food. Supposedly, people sometimes got headaches if they didn't eat for very long. How long had I been unconscious? And why hadn't I ever had this problem before? I'd gone for days without food without anything wrong happening. Still, it was the only explanation I could think of.

As we continued to fly, however, the headache didn't go away. It _got worse_. I growled, attracting the unwanted attention of those next to me in the formation. I shook my head and forced it down. So much of my attention was focused inwards that I hardly noticed how much time had passed until the sun had almost set behind us, and I guessed from the looks on everyone's faces that we had gone that immeasurable distance of 'far enough' away. Plus, I was going to need some food, water, or rest to get rid of this monstrous headache.

"Okay everyone, time to bag us Bambi!" Gazzy said in his best southern redneck imitation, holding an imaginary shotgun. Not everyone laughed, but I had to admit that it was pretty funny. I just didn't feel like laughing. I forced my raging headache down again, ignoring it no longer a possibility. In the last minute it had gone from a constant thrum of pain to a high pitched whine. Spikes of pain randomly shot through my skull, making me almost flinch every time they went off. _What in the world is going on?_ I asked myself. My hands were cold, and I felt like I was losing control of my own body.

As if the situation wasn't rocky enough, another spike slammed and buried itself into my skull, forcing me to give a whimper. Why was this happening? I felt like I was about to pass out from pulling too many G's. I fought for altitude, forcing my wings into action. Everything was a blur, even the rapidly approaching ground. My whole body was numb now, and I couldn't feel the wind I knew had to be rushing past me as I plummeted the remaining distance.

Somewhere deep inside, I found a tiny pocket of reserve strength, what remained of my control. And as I exhausted the pits of my strength, I made one last effort to control my descent.

* * *

The end for now...will update soon again. 

Look, I've been reading over my stories, and I know they are lacking certain elements. Unfortunately, I'm sort of clueless as to what it's missing. Grumption? Detail for setting? Detail for action parts? Better dialogue? More humor, less humor? More cliffhangers or surprises or less? I don't know what it is. Maybe a change in writing style? Lose the OC entirely (and thus leave no explanation to the change in the whole storyline?) I know I'm ignorant to the problem, and ignorance is supposedly bliss. But ignorance is not bliss if you already know you're ignorant, because what you don't know will bug you in the back of your head until you want to scream.

I also planned to have this chapter up sooner, but I fell short of completing it as a chapter in its own before I ran out of creativity. No more muses, unfortunately, because they're unionized and are on strike, demanding longer breaks and more sleep hours. If they hadn't gone on strike, I would have had this up Friday the 11th of June. Sorry for the delay and (relatively) short chapter. For those of you who don't know, Max is having chip troubles. This (like most of the rest of this story) has nothing to do with the OC.

This chapter is probably going to be either edited or rewritten, because I'm not satisfied with it…but I can't write it any better right now, so it's staying the way it is.


	5. In the Thick of Things

Special thanks to: Sesshy's Girl 00 for reviewing and reading my Author's notes. I've gotten a bit of input from both sides as to what to do with the OC. I won't tell anyone the results. This chapter and the next were written before I got any of the feedback for this new series of updates, so I'm sorry if it looks like I'm ignoring you. Your suggestions will be more visible in a bit.

I need a better title for this story…

All right, I was officially out of ideas for a chapter title. So I asked a friend. We began discussing possible titles and we came up with….

In the Thick of Things

* * *

Fang and Gazzy crept their way through the brush. Okay, Fang crept. Gazzy crunched through the brush like an elephant with gas issues. And he kept shifting when they were crouched. Fang resisted the urge to tell him to turn back and find the camp- it wasn't that he didn't trust Gazzy, but that Gazzy was upset enough as things were. Hell, the whole flock seemed to be having difficulty dealing with a life without Max in it. Max was now more or less unconscious. She'd been unconscious and still screaming by the time he'd landed. It had scared Fang. Whatever could get Max to scream was something he never, ever wanted to encounter. And the fact that there was nothing visibly wrong with her made this all the scarier.

"Fang?" Gazzy whispered.

"What?" Fang asked. He tried not to hiss or sigh, but the Gasman simply did not understand the importance of being quiet when hunting something, especially in the dark. Besides, this would be the…twelfth time he'd been asked this in under a minute? He'd lost count long ago. It wouldn't be long before he lost his patience or his marbles, too, at the rate that everything was falling apart without her to take care of everything. He'd wanted to stay behind and make sure Max was okay, hell, it was where he wanted to be _right now_ instead of becoming a late night snack for blood sucking bugs. But if there was a chance that this would help Max, then he had to do it. He couldn't live with himself if he hadn't tried everything in his power to save Max and she died. And it looked like it was becoming a more real possibility by the moment. He'd sent Iggy back with water they'd found from a local stream.

"What's wrong with Max?" Gazzy asked.

"I don't know," Fang said automatically. Maybe it was going so far without any food, maybe it was a total lack of sleep, maybe…maybe it was something else. Maybe it was something he didn't want to accept as even possible. Max could be dying, her DNA unwinding as he and Gazzy crept through the forest like a pair of drunk rhinos. He 'stealthily' made his way through the underbrush, barely making the leaves rustle. "Psst!" he hissed sharply. Gazzy halted in his steps. "Hear that?" he asked lowly.

Gazzy listened. A second later he heard what sounded like foot steps. "Yeah," he answered in a whisper.

"Get your flashlight ready. We're going to get one shot at this," Fang said, handing Gazzy an extra. Fang had one more flashlight in one hand and a pistol in the other. The pistol was bulky in his hand- he'd never actually used one before. And here he was trying to kill something with one. He'd seen them used in Hollywood before, so he assumed he was pointing it the right way. Hopefully he wouldn't just shoot himself. If Max came around, and if Fang survived the experience, he knew he'd never hear the end of it, and probably be wishing that he had shot himself somewhere else, like the head. "Get ready," he hissed again.

"Now!" he cried. All three flashlights clicked on, pointing dead on at a big deer, who raised his antlered head and stared directly at the beams of light, just like Max had said it would. It still had a mouthful of grass hanging out of its mouth, but it was too stunned to be chewing it. Fang steadied his pistol, aiming it for where he hoped was the skull. Suddenly, the deer turned away from the pistol, denying Fang a clear shot, and bolted, bounding with incredible speed through the underbrush. Fang didn't even have the chance to aim in the deer's general direction as his prey slipped into the forest quietly and about five times as fast as Gazzy and Fang had made their way here, disappearing in only seconds.

"Crap," he and Gazzy muttered simultaneously.

"I guess the flashlights weren't strong enough," Fang said, keeping his on as he tromped back to the campsite. It was no use using it to hunt now. They just had to hope Max would somehow last through the night.

* * *

When I came to, I immediately knew that everything was not as it should be. For one, when I woke up, I did it quickly. That meant I hadn't fallen asleep, but that I'd been knocked unconscious. Memories of the utter, sheer agony that I had experienced just prior to being knocked out came rushing back into my still aching head.

_What the hell?_ I wondered. I knew Erasers came apart after a number of years. Was this the case with me? Was I about to die? There were known DNA issues- but I had never actually met a dying Eraser. Nor had I asked one what it felt like to expire. I was mostly too busy fighting them. I shuddered at the thought of dying _now_ of all times. Now was when the flock probably needed me the most, when we needed direction, a place to go, someone to lead them and protect them.

I then noticed exactly where I was. I was in a clearing- only a few feet from a campfire. The others were all around me, and it was nighttime. Iggy was on watch- why was the blind kid on watch? Because he could hear _everything_, including me waking up, because he stood. "Max," he said, voice full of obvious relief. I tried to nod, to move my head, but I instantly regretted it and let the pain out with a hiss. "Yeah, Iggy," I said, keeping my head absolutely still. I only then noticed that the makeshift pillow I was using was a backpack…placed over Fang.

I tried to move again, and was rewarded with waking Fang up. He blinked his eyes open. "Max," he said in the same tone as Iggy.

"I'm here," I said. "What happened?" I asked.

Iggy and Fang exchanged a quick look. "We were hoping you could tell us. We got you some water, and we caught a rabbit. I just got back from trying to hunt with those flashlights."

I gave him a confused glance before I remembered what he was talking about- hunting deer. "Catch anything?" I wasn't hungry- Chewing would involve moving muscles in my head, which seemed like a bad idea. Plus, I smelled vomit nearby. Apparently, at some point, I'd upchucked whatever little was in my stomach.

"No, he took off into the forest." Fang said disgustedly.

"What happened?" I asked finally.

"What do you remember?"

"Not much," I said truthfully. "A whole lot of pain…and trying to land. Now I wake up here, and it's all dark." I knew how I sounded- scared. I tried not to, but honestly, this scared me more than anything. The others needed me. I wasn't very scared of dying- it was something that would eventually happen to everyone. Yes, me dying scared me a little, but not as much as leaving everyone to fend for themselves. If I had died…if I was _going_ to die…then…what would the others do? Right now we were barely a day's flight from outside The School. If I died, what would have happened to the others when the Erasers came?

_And what would the world do without Maximum Ride?_

To say that I jumped would have been an understatement, because I didn't just jump. I jumped, startled, and spat out the water Iggy was letting me drink into a fine spray. The voice hadn't come from anyone in the flock. Actually, it hadn't come from anyone, period. It hadn't come from any direction, and the only thing anyone had noticed was my reaction to the voice- not the voice itself. I categorized these things inside my still throbbing head._ Okay, who are you, and how do I get rid of you_? Were the two things.

_I cannot tell you who or what I am, Maximum Ride. All that you must know is that you are to save the world. It is your purpose. You will face challenges. I am going to try and help you face them. Removing me is not something you want to do._

_Are you in my head?_

_Yes._

_Very nice, and I guess that if you're not going to give me a name, then you are officially 'the voice in my head'. Or 'the voice,' until further notice. And before we get any further, tell me how to get rid of you. I want you out. Now._

_Maximum Ride, that is impossible and you know it. A voice in your head…is in your head. One more thing…You must continue to New York._

_That's it? That's all you have to say? Go to New York? _I asked. Right. New York. Weren't we headed there anyways? _Am I going batshit?_ I thought sarcastically to the voice. The voice said nothing. Actually, I'm sure it had something obnoxiously stupid to say. I just had the feeling that it wasn't _there_ anymore, or at least not for the very moment.

"Max, what is it?" Iggy asked, shaking me by the shoulders.

"Iggy…" I began. How should I phrase this? Your leader has started hearing voices? I think I've gone nutso? Invest in a new leader? I need a vacation? You're all driving me nuts? "Iggy, I think there's something…in my head," I said. There, now that went well.

I now had the whole flock's undivided attention. "Uh…I mean, you know those jokes about people hearing voices in their heads? Well…I think… maybe I am hearing them."

"Whatddya mean?" Gasman asked. "Do you mean, like you've got an invisible friend?"

"No, like it's _in my head_," I tried to explain. "And it seems to know what's going on."

"What?" Fang asked.

"It said 'Maximum Ride," I said. "And it said I should go to New York."

"Uh, Max?" Fang questioned me.

"Yeah?"

"We're not going to New York, right? I mean, that would be a _bad_ idea."

I ignored the fact that this was probably one of the longest sentences he'd ever said to me, and focused on the question. "I know, it has 'trap' written all over it. But I just thought it over, and it isn't _that_ bad an idea to just follow through."

"Would you mind explaining why not?" Nudge asked. "I mean, I'm with Fang on this one."

"Because if it was made by The School, then they already know where we are. The voice just said 'continue to New York.' If we get there and nothing happens, we all know I'm insane. But if we get there and we find clues, then we're on to something."

"Yeah, we're onto a trap. That would be a _great_ lead." Iggy said sarcastically. I shot him a dark glare, which was utterly wasted on the blind kid.

"No, it would also tell me that we're not insane. And that the voice is not to be trusted."

"Yes, and a fat load of good it does us when we're in cages."

"We don't have a choice, Iggy. We really don't. If it said for us to _continue_ to New York, that means they already know where we are. Why not just jump us where we are right now? Why not just cart us away? Why wait until we're at New York?"

"Because it's all in your head?" Angel asked innocently.

"Oh, very funny," I retorted. "Look, if you guys want out, I have no call to stop you. But I'm going to New York, because I know that otherwise there's a chance that…something very _bad_ is going to happen."

"But you have to admit that it is rather coincidental that we leave The School, and all of a sudden you're hearing things. For all we know, it _is_ The School."

"For all we know, it was made by them. But until we know, we can't rule it out as an asset. I want to stop The School, to shut it down forever just as much as you guys do. And if this might help, then I'm going to give it a shot. Besides, it just won't leave me alone. And whatever might or might not be waiting for me in New York is something I'd rather not face alone. So who's with me?"

"Like you have to ask, Max. I just was making sure you were positive that this was the best thing to do." Iggy said.

"And I think I speak for everyone. Wherever you go, we follow. We couldn't just leave you to go off and face this on your own. We come as a family package, and that's what it means to be a flock," Gasman finished.

Now I'm not one to cry. I haven't really done it in years, when Jeb left. But this was one of those moments that just sort of grabbed at your heartstrings and gave them a good yank. "Uh…thanks. I hope this works out for the best," I said, trying to keep myself under control. It wouldn't do me any good to just break down right now. I had to keep going. The flock depended on me. And I depended on them. They were family, and they understood without my asking them. Home was where the flock was. It wasn't any stupid house by the lake or even a tent. It was my family, it was my home, and it was my flock. And I would have none other, nor have it any other way.

* * *

Look, I know this update was a little shorter compared to the others, but I'm working as fast as I can. The next one is longer and darker, and spreads more background for the OC. And in case you have been wondering, the OC is not Mary-Sue. He's as original as they get. And no, this is totally not a self-insert.

And, as promised, he did not appear in this chapter or the last one. But I've got to progress his storyline if this story is to progress at all. Please, review! It's my equivalent of fuel and food for me.


	6. Memories of a Murderer

Thanks for the reviews, and please leave another! I need your help now more than ever!

Thanks to Jimi Hendrix and The Toadies for musical inspiration. My strategy goes like this: play a song over and over again until parents give me more Itunes money. So far I've got Purple Haze, Possum Kingdom, Foxey sic Lady, and Voodoo Child playing through my head. Starting to get a headache, so I didn't make this chapter too long. Expect a minor delay for me; I'm not writing for a little while, I'm helping a friend get oriented on fictionpress, biking, and working longer hours. I'll do what I can…

I also had a killer headache, so I can relate a little to Max for the beginning of this chapter. Thanks, random asshole who gave me the virus! You improved my story! Wish I could thank him or her with a swift kick in the ass.

Anyways, on with the story. Sorry for the delay. My friend wouldn't discuss chapter titles. Something about a banana phone and Jesus buddy kept him more than interested. And without further ado, I bring you…

Okay, I couldn't, in good conscious, leave the chapter at 1,500 words. It was 1000 words shorter than my shortest chapter. So I had to make it better. It took me a grand total of 15 minutes to more than double it. Hooray for efficiency! Uh-oh, I'm late for work.

* * *

My head still wasn't feeling right, and it had been three days since I had had the voice. Since then, it had butted in to offer helpful but unwelcome advice. My head still ached a little, but it seemed to be going away, and it felt like a normal headache, which I thought I'd _never_ be glad to have.

"Max," Angel said quietly. I looked up and stopped pondering how I was going to deal with this voice in my head and met her eye-to-eye.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Max, I offered to show you what I saw inside Ghost. And…well, it isn't pleasant. And it's been eating away at me, and I think I have to share it with someone."

"Eating away at you?" I asked. What did she mean by that?

"I mean to say that it's just…you need to see it. And I need you to explain it to me, because some things just aren't adding up."

"What things?" I asked.

"Please Max," Angel said. When a member of the flock asked me for something, and added a 'please' to it, it was hard to resist, no matter what they were asking for.

"Fine," I said, turning totally to face her. "What did you want to show me?"

"When I looked inside of Ghost…well, it's hard to explain something you don't understand," she said, trying her best to be articulate and failing at it. "It's really frustrating."

"I know," I said a bit more empathetically than I needed to, thinking of the voice. The flock had still been asking questions more than an hour after I'd told them about the voice. I hadn't been sure which would drive me crazy first- the voice, or my own flock.

"Maybe I can just show you. It would be faster."

"Okay, but what exactly will you be showing me?" I asked, trying not to sound nervous.

"Uh, exactly what I saw, felt, heard, you know, the five senses. It's whatever I picked up from when I was in his head. What you make of it is up to you."

I bit my lower lip. "Let's do this," I said. She nodded and closed her eyes. Following her lead, I did the same.

Suddenly, the forest surroundings were pitch black, and I felt myself sort of leave my body as it became numb as I got more and more into the memory, which began to trickle in, starting low, in the back of my subconscious, but quickly working its way to the front of my mind. _Warm blood coated my hands. I felt…happy wasn't the word. Satisfied? Was that the word? I'd done a good job. Someone, someone important to me, would be pleased at what I'd done._ But there was something distracting me from my…satisfaction, if that was the word I was looking for. It was in the back of my mind, whatever the hell it was. I paused, frowning as I focused in on it. It sounded like someone screaming. I listened harder, and suddenly I was reminded of where and who I was. For a heartbeat, I was two separate people; I was both at once Ghost, and I was also myself. And I was torn; I was pleased, and yet I was terrified all at the same time. The strain made me clutch at my skull, raking my fingernails through my short _and_ long hair. Suddenly I was back in reality. My hair was blonde and long again, and I realized that I was screaming and my fingers were digging into my skull to the point that they were probably drawing blood. The rest of the flock was gathered around me in seconds.

"What happened, Max, is it the voice?" Fang asked, worried. I almost would say he was freaking out, but this was _Fang_. And Fang never, ever freaked out. He was just too cool to freak out.

"A memory," Angel explained for me, seeing as how I was busy freaking out myself. "She got in too deep, and tried to pull herself out. The strain…it must have hurt her," she said, voice full of worry. I wondered why the world was still spinning and why I felt so sick. I never got motion sickness, part of the many benefits of being a frequent flyer on Flock Airways. I realized my thoughts were rambling and tried to clear my mind, but images flashed of my blood-covered hands. The deep breath I was taking ended in a gasp as I began to hyperventilate.

Fang crouched next to me and pulled my face eye to eye with his. "Calm down," he said. "We're here, Max, it's over."

I paused, taking a breath. _Calm down_. I ordered myself sternly. _Pull yourself together. You have seen worse._ "Well, that was…horrifying," I said to everyone. Somehow, Fang's presence had served to calm me beyond whatever inner strength I could pull together.

"What was it? What did you see?" Fang repeated.

I shuddered. "I-I saw…my hands covered in blood." I was sweating. "But I…it was terrible," I said quietly. "Fang, Iggy, the others don't need to hear or see this."

He nodded, and the others stood, Gazzy grumbling something about not being a kid, but they all ambled their way over to the other side of the camp.

"I…it…ugh," I said, shaking my hands of the imaginary blood. "I had killed something or someone, I think. My hands were covered in someone else's blood. But that's not all. I was…satisfied at what I had done. Someone…I think that's a deeper secret still, someone was going to be pleased at what I'd done. And that made me happy. I was happy I'd killed something. And while that wasn't me who had done it…I felt it inside of me. It was as if _I_ was happy at my actions. I felt it, like as if I were in the same situation, I would feel the same way." I wasn't sure how Angel had stayed with this memory for so long. I'd already snapped coming out of it. Then again, she'd said the strain was the main issue. Maybe it got easier if I did this more often, though I'd sooner fight a squad of Erasers than go through this again, it was comforting to know that she hadn't had to go through quite the same experience.

"What do you think it means?" Fang asked.

"What it means is that Ghost is not to be trusted. If you see him again, and you're all alone, run. Somebody used him to kill someone else, I think. And that means he's probably a tool of The School. I don't know who the person who used him was, or the person he killed, but it doesn't matter. The only people who could have used Ghost like that was someone at The School, and if he's ever answered to anyone at The School, that makes him dangerous."

"Maybe it was a scientist. That explains why he was locked up when we found him," Iggy offered. I don't know why, but it seemed to me that Iggy had always been pretty defensive regarding Ghost.

"No, this was outdoors. And it wasn't a scientist. The memory is sort of fuzzy, but I would have noticed a white coat."

Iggy shrugged, as did Fang. "Okay, so if we see Ghost, pour on the speed?" Iggy asked grumpily. He wasn't happy about the facts, but seemed ready to accept them.

I nodded. The others stood up and left me be, but Angel stayed put. I looked up at her. "Angel, you were smart not to trust him." I said.

Well, it seemed as if we had a new enemy.

But on the plus side my headache was gone.

* * *

Jeb walked into the morgue after punching in with his handprint. The decontamination field's chemicals would have essentially destroyed any keycard he'd had. He had to time this right. He put on his best angry face and strode in. With no introduction, or even a 'hello' to the mortician, Dr. Butters, he immediately, and in an irritated tone, started making demads. "Where is the body of my would-be Assassin?"

"Doctor Batchelder?" asked the mortician. He was a pale mousy little man and less than what one could call trustworthy.

"I killed the Assassin and planned to pick it up on my own and conduct a few experiments on its body. Now I don't know how you managed to gain access into my office, but I am certain I left the door locked. I returned with a gurney and some trained assistants, but the body was gone." Jeb's body language was unmistakably hostile, and the mortician was practically quaking in his boots.

"Batchelder, I swear, I don't know what-"

"Mister Butters, if you cannot find the body in two minutes, I will have Ari here dismember you, and then let a junior technician practice on your remains. Do I make myself clear?"

"Doctor Batchelder, please!" Butters was babbling and sweating now. Ari sat back. This was a side of his father he had rarely seen. And he was enjoying watching every moment of it. He realized that he had almost missed his cue and looked menacingly towards Butters, who began sputtering and whimpering quickly.

"Butters," Jeb said. "You have eaten through one minute of your remaining life and spent it lying to me."

"Jeb, I swear by all that is holy, I don't know where the body is! I've received two bodies today, and they're right over there!" he said, pointing to two gurneys in the corner of the room. Both were in bodybags, but each was less than half the size of the missing body. Failed experiments, it would seem.

Jeb paused. Then he rocked on his heels in fake realization. "If I find you are lying, Butters, Ari will do far worse than dismember you. Ari, come with me. Assign someone to watch over Mister Butters, to make sure he doesn't do anything _stupid._"

Ari nodded and in seconds had someone on the job. A young eraser, half Ari's age and experience, but still eager and fierce. She was training to be a scout, and Ari rather admired her spirit and loyalty.

Jeb was almost to his office by the time Ari had left Butters with his guard. "Ari, I need you to wait outside my office. We may have another escaped prisoner, but we need to check. Go over security files in the garage. I'm sure the prisoner was in no shape to fly when I left him bleeding on my carpet floor, so I assume he will be trying to secure another means of travel."

Ari nodded and sprinted for the security section. Jeb watched him go and stepped inside his office. He logged onto his computer and sent an e-mail. He wanted to give Ghost more time, but if he didn't act now, it would be suspicious. He opened his mail and wrote to his superior.

_Urgent: Prey Experiment Ghost loose. Whereabouts unknown. Contact with flock may be catastrophic for plans due to subject's attributes_, he wrote. A second later, Ari knocked on the door and Jeb pressed the 'unlock' button. Ari strode in, holding a videotape in his clawed hand. "He took your car," he said.

Jeb bit down on a curse and pretended to shuffle his paperwork, as if looking for his keys. "Why did the gate guard not stop him?"

"The guard has instructions to let you pass in and out without being searched," Ari reminded Jeb. Of course, Jeb already knew all of this.

"I see. My car has no tracking chip in it. That will make finding Ghost difficult."

"Ghost?" Ari asked. His ears perked up in annoyance.

"Yes," Jeb said, rubbing his temples. "I want you to find and bring Ghost back. Dead or alive," Jeb finished.

"Where can I find him?" Ari asked.

"I have every confidence in your ability to find someone, Ari," Jeb said. Ari knew this was lingo for 'I don't have a clue, so good luck and happy hunting.'

"Understood. Can I assemble a new squad of erasers? We lost a few when we went after the flock's hideout. I am going to need replacements."

Jeb nodded, then waved his son off, pretending to get back to work on his computer. He only hoped that Ghost hadn't caught up with the flock. He sighed and reached into his desk for his wallet. His hand slapped solid wood. He looked down in alarm and cursed for real this time. The son of a bitch had stolen his wallet! He groaned and sank into his chair. Canceling a card that was untraceable was going to be…difficult, and getting a new one was probably going to be even harder. Then again, he should have expected it. Unleashing someone as out of control as Ghost was certain to have its consequences, ones even Jeb couldn't have predicted. Jeb just hadn't expected for them to happen quite so fast. He would just have to get the card cancelled before Ghost could reach civilization, and unless you knew your way around the area, you were more likely to run out of gas first. Or at least Jeb hoped Ghost would run out of gas. He rather liked that car.

* * *

Ghost sniffed the campfire. He picked at the ash and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. It was still recent, he noted as he recalled the survival training he'd learned so many years ago. The ash was still warm. The flock had been traveling in a straight arrow for New York. He didn't know why they were heading there, or what they expected to find there, but that was their heading. And he was getting closer, but it wasn't without consequences. He hadn't eaten in two days, he'd dropped off more several pounds from not eating, and his muscles screamed with every flap of his wings. He was slower, less graceful, and heavier than any member of the flock. But he never had to stand watch or hunt for as long as the rest of the flock.

Plus, at night, the wind was calmer and he used this to his advantage. There were definite advantages to traveling alone. Even so, he also doubted Max and the others were flying at full speed- if they had, their trail would have been growing colder, not warmer. Were they waiting for him to catch up, or was something else slowing them down? Maybe one of them was hurt, and it made sense that they would all stay as a group- Iggy's blindness was proof enough that Max was not the type of leader to simply leave one of her own behind, no matter what happened to that person. It was an admirable trait, and it said a lot about the bond between the flock.

He sighed and stood, stretching his sore back. He'd let his backpack fall off his shoulders easily and wings droop along the forest floor. He wasn't going to try and use them as rigorously for much longer. Either he'd run out of stamina and be forced to try and catch up some other way or he'd catch up with them. Considering how new this campfire was, he'd guess he wasn't far behind- one or two days at the most. He was almost there. He had dumped Jeb's car over a cliff after it had run out of fuel. It had been a fun and interesting first attempt behind the wheel of a car. Of course the Eraser training manual had a few words to say about driving, but they were…inadequate. Ghost had almost run the car off the road on several occasions, and forgotten which side of it was the right one.

One adrenaline-pumping near-miss later, and he was sure he would never forget he was supposed to always be on the right. He was hot on the trail of his targets, and he knew it.

That was four days ago. Four days of 'freedom'. He looked up at the incoming thunderstorm. _Crap_. This might slow him down. He paused. But it would definitely slow down Max. Max wasn't stupid enough to fly a group into a thunderstorm. They might become separated, and if one of them was injured, well, the winds were extremely harsh. It might be too much. Max was crazy, yes, but she wasn't dumb. This might be his chance to close the gap. He knew that he couldn't possibly get separated from any group- he was traveling alone. It would be difficult to fly in. But not impossible.

Right?

* * *

It seems I've forgotten to have a good physical description of Ghost. This is mainly because I can't seem to decide on one. What color should the hair be? Should his eyes even be normal, or a dead giveaway to his nonhuman lineage? As you can guess, I'm being thorough in my appearance selection. No, he will not resemble me. I'm about 6', 160 lbs, and I am a kind person to a fault. This isn't at all like Ghost. (He will be shorter, younger, weigh more, and is, in case you didn't pick it up in this chapter, not a very nice person.)

A shorter update than you would have liked, I know, but that's because I really hadn't meant to let an earlier scene run two chapters ago…whoops. Anyways, it doesn't really mess things up too badly. But it might throw off the story a little; I'd planned for this to come _before_ the whole Ghost/Jeb showdown, and to end this chapter in the 'Ghost/Jeb showdown.' Chronologically it might not flow, though, so I need your input (again) as to what would work best.


	7. Invisible Man

Okay, sorry if you guys keep getting alerts for the same chapter- I'm adding corrections to old ones and the like, and I forgot on chapter 6 to use the replace chapter. My bad. Sorry. I figured I'd make it up to you with a _real_ new chapter.

A a a a a a a

You know what? Flying in the rain is not fun. Running in the rain isn't a ton of fun, but flying in it is about 50 times worse. So it's not fun at all. It's terrifying, loud, disorienting, and the weather plays hardball, sometimes literally, using hailstones the size of marbles to make one's day miserable. Lightning and thunder makes you wince and instinctively dive every time it goes off- and it feels like it's right next to you, too. The wind batters you about and disorients you, putting unusual strains on someone who was trying to stay airborne.

So Ghost was not, as you can expect, not having a good time, shivering and shaking as he flapped as hard as he could. For once his heavier construction was in his favor- any pounds lighter and he was sure that he would tossed around like a rag doll. Several things kept him going- the fact that landing wouldn't make him any warmer or dryer. And happy thoughts, such as the memory of the car going over the edge of the cliff. It was one of those things you don't expect to see more than once in a lifetime, much as you wish you did, and it still made him smile a little as he thought of different things. He had a smile for imagining Jeb's facial reaction. He had a smile for imagining Jeb having to buy a new one. He even made a sinister smile thinking over his plans for what to do with the new one Jeb would inevitably buy.

It kept him going. He was going to be tired tonight, but it was worth it, he knew. It was the only thing that kept the pain in his chest from really bothering him- yes, Jeb had missed the vital stuff. But it had been many days and it still _hurt_. One more reminder of his failure, he reflected. He wanted so badly to stay behind- to hunt Jeb, to find him and kill him then and there, to make him learn that keeping Ghost alive was a mistake. But Ghost also knew that he'd been very lucky to even get to Jeb's office, and then into the Garage without being spotted. He switched his thoughts back to plans for the next day.

A a a a a a a a

"Uh…Doctor Batchelder?" Asked the security agent. He looked a little nervous, and Jeb just felt his headache multiply. His day- both the Security Agent and his own day- had probably just gotten _that_ much worse.

"What?" he asked, voice dripping with sarcasm. He didn't have to be in a good mood if he knew he was about to get bad news. From the way the agent was standing, it was _very_ bad news.

"Sir…I think we found your car," he said, holding out a folder. Jeb sighed and reached across his desk. A few printed digital photos slipped out, and he turned it right side up, to make sure he wasn't looking at what he thought he was. He flipped open the folder and saw the rest. He looked up- the security agent had smartly slipped way while Jeb was distracted. Jeb slammed his fist onto the mahogany desk. The twisted hulk of what was probably his car was found at the bottom of a cliff, apparently.

No one's body had been found. Good. That meant that Ghost didn't die. It also meant Jeb had the opportunity to kill Ghost for doing this.

A a a a a a a a

We looked at the approaching thunderstorm. Crap. It was coming fast. We had called an emergency meeting a few minutes ago, and decided that it was safe here, in high ground, safe from a flash flood. What they didn't say was that if we had to stop for a sudden reason, say, cough voice cough then we might not be in such a good position. Namely, we might end up in the middle of a flash flood. Which would not be good. So we had unanimously chosen to wait out the storm.

Right now, Gazzy and Nudge were getting fish, Fang was getting firewood with Angel, Iggy was making the setup for the fireplace, with rocks that I suspect he found by stumbling over them. and Nudge was helping me make something of a roof using sticks and foliage. It wouldn't hold up very well, but we would add in some of our jackets. The voice had added in a bit of opinion and even a little help- it suggested how to weave certain branches together. The roof might leak a little…okay a lot, but it was better than nothing. The others came back after a successful forage, and we had a quick meal, one that was soon interrupted by a familiar visitor who had come straight from hell. With all the background thunder in the distance, they had effectively masked their entrance, and Angel's ability to detect people wasn't always as efficient as we would have liked.

Ari stepped through the clearing. He had a whole entourage of Erasers with him. We all stood to face Ari. Even Iggy knew the sound of his breathing and footsteps and faced him. I dropped the remainder of my fish-on-a-stick, and the others did the same. There were meager bits left. What surprised me, however, was when _more_ Erasers came through. Ari had apparently replenished his squad from their little incursion into our home. And that time, even though they had the solid drop on us, they'd kicked our butts. Hard. And we were in great physical condition then- well fed and everything. We had been near starved these past few days. This could get ugly.

I tried to do this diplomatically. "What do you want, Ari?" I growled, clenching a fist. See? Diplomatically.

"Ah, yes, dear Max. And…" Ari began lazily, but then paused dead still, scanning the flock incredulously. He scanned it backwards, then forwards, as if looking for someone who wasn't there. I resisted the urge to look with him. "Hold on a second, where's Ghost?"

I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to be shocked or angry at him. Now if he had simply noted that Ghost was missing, I wouldn't have made such a big deal out of it. But no, he was acting as if Ghost were the _only_ reason he was here. Was I jealous? Hell no. But what were we, chopped liver? Still, never let it be said I am jealous of anything but kids who can call themselves normal. I certainly wasn't about to be jealous of someone the Erasers were looking for. "What do you mean, where's Ghost?" I asked suspiciously. _Max_ the voice drifted in.

_Not now_ I urged it.

"Where the devil is he?"

_Max…get the others to… _

"You mean you can't see him?" Iggy asked, teasing.

"He _is_ standing right in front of you." Nudge added sarcastically.

_To do what?_ I asked. It seemed to me as if they had an idea going. I gave an important look to Gazzy that the Erasers couldn't see. He gave no sign of receiving the look, but stepped right into the act.

"Yeah, what is this, some sort of game?" Ghost said. At least, I at first thought it really _was_ Ghost, until I realized that it was Gazzy who had said it, using Ghost's voice. Ari spun quickly, crouched low, facing slightly to our right. Even though I had told Gazzy to do the voice, I hadn't expected him to be _that_ good. The hapless Erasers gave each other looks, necks craning and heads swiveling.

_Never mind _the voice said.

"I'm right here," Gazzy continued, throwing his voice to be right in front of Ari's path. Ari spun again. "A little to the left there, dog-face. Good, I think. God, even Iggy knows where I am better than you do."

Ari looked totally baffled, trying to see where Iggy was looking. Of course, it was no help whatsoever. We all were staring at Ari- but to Ari, we were looking at someone in front of his face. He growled, dove forward, and promptly kissed the dirt. "Keep trying, you'll get it eventually. Or maybe one of your new goons can try and point you in the right direction."

But they all looked as lost as Ari. Not one of them was facing in the right direction. One even was turned completely away.

"Look, if you came here to find me, and you obviously can't, why don't you just go on home?"

Ari paused. His face was totally confused. He looked so lost, so out of it that I was surprised he hadn't already started shouting orders to shred us to tiny little bits. Instead, he simply looked to the others. "But you're-" he shut himself up quickly and seemed to ponder the situation. "Search the area," he said quietly to his pack. They turned their backs on us and stalked away into the forest.

"What was _that_ about?" Gazzy asked in his regular voice. Now I was as confused as the Erasers.

"I don't know. All in favor of getting the hell out of here before anything else weird happens?"

"Aye," everyone all said unanimously. Seconds later we were airborne, having ripped our makeshift shelter apart in a frenzy to get our coats and get airborne.

A a a a a a a

"Good thinking, Gazzy. That was your best performance yet!" Iggy said, slapping him a high-five. "Dog face," he sniggered. "Great job."

"What do you say we make the Erasers paranoid? What if they think he's invisible? Just tell them he's called 'Ghost' for a reason. He can disappear…." He said, making a creepy noise following his little joke.

"It _would_ be a nice turn of the tables," Fang said seriously.

"Gazzy, do you feel up to it?" I asked hopefully.

"I don't know. What if they manage to find the real him?" Iggy asked, again that hint of concern.

"Then they won't buy our little act and we're in trouble."

"All right," he said. "Hey, if they're looking for him, to the point that they aren't even going after us, what does that mean? Hurts my feelings," he said, putting a hand over his heart and a dismayed expression on his face.

"Well, I don't think we'll be that lucky…" Nudge chipped in. "I mean, we caught him totally off-guard. Odds are he'll attack us whether or not Ghost is here. But the fact that he was even looking for an agent of The School is…strange."

"Yeah, you're right. Unless The School is trying to get us to trust one another or something." I knew that wasn't right- Ari had fully expected Ghost to be here. So that meant he'd made clean his getaway from the school- if it was a getaway at all, not them giving him instructions on what to do with us."

"No, that can't be right. The School is either totally blunt, like when they kidnapped me, or amazingly subtle, like they were with Jeb. If that's their plan, then this is pathetic." Angel said. "I honestly expected more. Aren't they _scientists_? Well, I'm…just disappointed," she said, pouting a little.

I laughed harder than I had in days. Still, something wasn't right. It didn't add up. When he'd heard Ghost, he'd tried to tackle him to the ground. He was really gunning for Ghost, not faking it. Why? We'd been lucky this time. Would this work again? Ari had been off guard, yes. But would he still be flat-footed the next time? Would he bring detection equipment to find that Ghost simply wasn't here? Would Ari believe his eyes or his ears?

_Set down_ the voice said.

_What?_

_Do you think you can out fly that storm for much longer? The hills are the safest place, and the ground below you right now is still fairly high- keep going though, and you run the risk of flash floods. The elevation drops shortly thereafter._

I mentally flipped him off, but realized that he had a point. Yes, we had to fly away from Erasers. But that did not mean that we had to fly into a trap that had been designed by none other than Mother Nature herself. "Flock, we're going back down in a minute, while we still are high enough to avoid a flash flood," I said.

"With Ari so close?"

"Hey, if _you_ didn't expect this, what are the chances they'll expect it?" Gazzy asked.

Fang was, as usual, quiet.

A a a a a a a a

Ari stifled a curse. He'd been told to relocate a few miles away. He and the others glanced between themselves- when Max took off, they usually got a helicopter ride out to try and catch up. What gave? Why the long walk? Then more information came through. Apparently, they'd tried to give them the slip by only traveling a few miles.

He reported that the Flock seemed to have Ghost…but that they had 'failed' to capture him. In a private message to his dad, Ari inquired as to whether or not Ghost could somehow turn invisible. Ari had seen similar experiments done with chameleons, but not one with wings.

To his surprise, his father said that Ghost did _not_ have the ability to turn invisible. So _where_ was he? He stifled a growl as he stared through the binoculars into the tent. These weren't just regular bird-watcher binoculars. These were top of the line military equipment. And it had heat sensors. Right now, he could count six inside the shabby, leaky tent they'd cleverly made. He counted what he thought was six, though it was hard to tell in the tiny cramped tent where one body ended and the next began. Six accounted for Max, the tall one, the blind one, the small boy, the small girl, and the girl they'd captured. Unless Ghost had switched with one of the bigger ones, or had managed to make himself invisible to heat sensors too- (there were experiments in that field, too) then he wasn't here. Or maybe he was just behind someone from Ari's point of view. Unfortunately, there was really no other angle to get a shot from.

He growled, and settled back into his camouflage. He wanted nothing more than to have his squad pile on atop that tent and bring it crashing down on top of the bird freaks' heads. But The School had been adamant that Ghost was his primary target- something about him ruining the flock. In Ari's opinion, they were already ruined.

The next day, there was still no sign of Ghost. In fact, as the flock awakened to find the storm gone, he was certain that Ghost wasn't a part of the flock. He growled. What was going on?

The plan had been simple- get around the tents, wait for Ghost to come out- alone or with the others, and hit him then. But they simply couldn't see him. It was more than frustrating to simply sit and wait while your prey sat unawares. It was sheer torture and agony. Images of violence and blood clouded his mind as he gave a wet, hungry growl. Screw The School. The flock was his.

He gave the signal to attack. No sooner had he given the whistle than did his full squad show up, dirty and as angry as he was over being made to spend the night with the prey in plain sight. It was time to end this. The flock began emerging from their tent. Ari gave a mighty fifteen foot leap, made all the more impressive seeing as how he did it uphill. He crashed into the tent, landing on the main support beam. Ghost may be invisible, but he knew from watching movies when he was bored that just because you were invisible didn't mean you could phase right through stuff. But the tent fell empty, no struggling outline for him to start pounding. No bootprints with no one filling them. Nothing.

All around him, the fight was raging fiercely. Ari noticed something. The smaller boy. He seemed talkative enough during most fights, and yet he thought he saw his mouth move a fraction of an inch…

"Max, lookout!" Ghost said. Ari looked over to where he saw the voice. No one was there. But the small one was staring right at Max, who had just ducked under an Eraser that had tried to get the drop on her from behind. _Of course!_ Ari wasn't sure how, but the small one was emulating the voice. He had to be. It explained everything- the reason only six food bars were eaten at a time, why Ghost was never asked to do anything, why he never took watch, why we never found anything with thermal or infrared detection equipment, and why we only kept hearing only his voice.

"Ghost isn't here!" Ari shouted, diving towards Fang. "It's all a trick! Attack them an-"

He was about a dozen feet from my first soon-to-be-victim, when an ear-splitting _CRACK_ sounded. Standing at the edge of the woods, holding a smoking barrel in one hand and the throat of Ari's Eraser Scout in the other was a very visible Ghost. He dropped the Eraser, who had a bullet hole in her chest. She flopped lifelessly to the Earth. Pity, Ari had rather liked her.

"I'm _what?_" he asked, paused like he was waiting for an explanation.

Ari roared. The remaining ten Erasers charged dead for him, angered from all the curious and mystifying deception. _Now_ was their chance. They wasn't sure when he'd found the time to eat, sleep, or drink, or how he'd managed to do all these things without everyone noticing. But it was unimportant now- he was going to die a painful death.

A a a a a a a

I stared over at Ghost. Where in the hell did he come from? And why had he just shot the Eraser? I stared at the body. So was everyone else. I knew better than to ask him where he'd come from. "I'm sorry, Ari, but _what_? Ghost _is_ here, you stupid mutt! He can turn invisible!"

Ari froze, and the others seemed to be following his lead. But the effect on Ghost was one of those Kodak moments, where you wish to God that you had a camera. "Wh-"

"Angel," I whispered.

"On it," she whispered back. I knew she was informing him of our little plan. Of course, I had no idea _why_ or _how_ Ghost was here. I know what I'd told everyone. But right now…well, he may well have just saved us.

Ghost seemed to leap a foot into the air, but he had maintained better facial expression control than I'd thought was possible. "That's right," he said a second later. But he said it hesitantly. I couldn't blame him. He'd come equipped to fight a war from all the equipment he had on, not play charades. Still it seemed to spook some of the others.

"Oh, sure," Ari said. I muttered a curse. He hadn't fallen for it. "Then why aren't you invisible right now, huh?"

"I was invisible enough to kill your scout here," he said, toeing the girl eraser. "And besides, I don't need to be because I've got you," he said, raising the pistol to Ari. Ari looked down the barrel a good twenty feet away. I knew that in all reality at that type of range the pistol was more or less useless. Ari smirked.

"Sure, you've got a target on me, but…"

As if on cue, the erasers surged forward as one and Ari dove to the side. The pistol went off, and the shot buried itself into a tree. I saw one of the Erasers that had been preoccupied with me try to run past, but I stuck out a foot and flung him into the ground. "Forgetting someone, are we?" I asked, giving him a good boot to the ribs before he got up and faced me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ghost turn and run back into the forest, a full six erasers plus Ari chasing him. The occasional gunshot told me the chase was still on. The rest of us dealt with the remaining three we'd forced behind. As far as we could tell, Ghost had shot one, the scout, Ari had gone off with six, and we'd forced four to stay here, and a typical squad consisted of twelve. So that was…everyone. Four erasers were going to be a challenge on a straight up-and-up fight, but we could manage.

The one I was facing stood up straight, shaking off the pain and tensing for another attack when suddenly another eraser tackled it to the ground and proceeded to pound its partner senseless. I looked up, and Angel gave me a wink. I turned back to the two fighting Erasers, and just gave a weak smile. That meant two on six…which in the open clearing was not as difficult. They might deck one of us, but they'd have to turn around to ward off another attack. And they were young, and weren't very quick to catch on to the new tactic. In under a minute, all the Erasers were unconscious.

"What now?" I asked.

Another gunshot sounded, this time closer than the others. And then Ghost had broken through the woods, running like hell, gun pointed backwards, more to try and scare anyone from getting too close than as an actual threat. He didn't bother to slow to reload the clip, but instead kept running, using the speed to liftoff. "Go, go go!" he shouted loudly.

_Max, it's time to move_.

"Flock, up and away!" I shouted. We were _out of there_. And I hoped dearly that we were doing the right thing.

A a a a a a a a

Look, I know I promised you all an explanation for why Ghost hates Jeb so much. This chapter went on longer than planned, and so I'm breaking it up into two sections. Maybe next chapter. Sorry about the false information. Thanks to The Blue Smurf Bandit (fiction press). Thanks also to all my favorite readers!

XIII Dragon

Sesshy's Girl 00

Lildragonpet

Again, sorry about both the mixup earlier with chapter 6 and that I didn't include more this chapter, but it's 3,800 words already.


	8. All Along the Watchtower

I'm losing a LOT of readers after chapter 1. I lose more than half of them. Anyone else have this happen? Anyways, I'm working on them, but I've got only a little time now each day. Biking, you see, has become my major focus. Writing takes a back seat. On my bike, there is no back seat.

Well, the story's sort of sunk to anonymity (it's not hits per day anymore, now it's now days per hit) so I thought it was definitely time to release the new chapter. My editor's been MIA for a few days, and I'm hoping KrazyKatie will help me with this chapter. Unfortunately, I have to buy the book Monday, seeing as how I lost my original copy some years ago, and I apparently screwed up Angel's powers.

This chapter is definitely the longest, over 6,000 words, beating the old record by 1,000. An edited version will likely come out later when KrazyKatie gets the time to look over the rest of my stuff and catches up. Please point out redundant points, grammar errors, other mistakes and plot holes you catch. Whoever catches one gets a good mention next chapter.

We were definitely _so_ out of there now. Screw short flight hops- we were going as far as we could from that place. There was the risk of running into the thunderstorm, but it had been moving southeast, so we would be skirting the edge, if anything. Plus, I didn't think the flock would slow down anyways.

"Nice trip, Max," Fang commented. I remembered how I'd stopped that one Eraser from getting away and felt myself blush for no apparent reason. This seemed to be happening a lot to me lately. I'd react, and strangely, to Fang. Whatever he did, I reacted to. And not like I normally would.

"Yeah, when he wakes up he's going to be pissed." I said. "Then again, when aren't they?"

"Wait…. wake up? You left them _ALIVE?_" Ghost asked, mouth almost hanging open in surprise. It was almost as if he wanted to hear that they were joking, and was waiting to hear a punch line that didn't exist. He had been silent since liftoff, except for the occasional heavy breathing and occasionally clumsy attempt to deal with sudden wind changes.

"Of course!" I said, equally shocked. What did he mean? Was I supposed to kill it in its face-in-the-dirt induced sleep? Twist of the neck and no more Eraser? Or should I do as he had, and get blood everywhere…I pushed it out of my mind.

"I'm amazed you've made it this far! Don't you know what this means?" he asked angrily.

I shrugged. "That he's alive?" I asked, totally unaware of what point he was trying to make. He'd managed to completely lose me.

"It means they'll just keep coming after us!" He said. "That Eraser will know to watch his step, and it's far more costly to The School to produce new Erasers!" Fang and the others had shifted formation, and were listening intently now.

"And _your_ alternative is to kill them, to get their blood on your hands?" I asked. The memory came back into my mind instantly. We still had to talk about that. I really should have picked a better phrase to get my point across. My whole body shuddered now, and I had an even harder time ignoring the memory.

His whole body had the exact same reaction, a moment where he forgot to flap, and I knew that I'd hit a nerve. I knew that was an important memory of his, but I hadn't expected quite that large of a reaction. "They aren't human," he said lowly at me after a few seconds' silence.

"Neither are we!" I said, totally, utterly offended. How could he say that when _he_ wasn't, either? The only thing I knew for certain was that this conversation was going _nowhere_, and fast. He and I were both unwilling to budge.

"Yes, but I'm killing them because if given half the chance they would kill me. We have human emotions. Erasers only know hate, hunger, and pain!"

"Why do that when you can just knock them out? It's more fun," Gazzy added.

"Cause if I don't kill them, then they will have learned from our last fight. They get tougher as they get older. And once they learn how to fight me, I might not be so lucky as to win next time. And then I'm dead! D-E-A-D!" He said, spelling out 'dead'. "I'm not getting locked up, or recaptured by white coats. I'm going to get killed. And then it's going to be _my_ blood on your hands because you didn't listen!" _Enough_ with mentioning bloody hands already! I was sick to my stomach with Ghost. What I didn't get is why we were still flying next to him. Hell, we could ditch him easy enough.

"So? The school abducts another child and makes another Eraser, and we put another family through the same miserable process! That's hardly what I would call right!" Nudge argued.

"So? In another three years those Erasers were going to die anyway!"

"I hope to God we have that place shut down in less than three years. If we do, then that would mean that fewer children will be abducted by The School as they try to find replacements for the dying old Erasers." Iggy said.

Realizing that he had lost this battle- (I was so proud of my flock), he tried a new tactic. "Erasers are smart, Max. You might not respect them, but you must admit that it's getting harder to hold them at bay. Ari's been gunning for Fang now. How much longer until he orders _two_ Erasers to go after Angel? How much longer until they stop grouping up for Iggy's famed explosives to work well? We kill them, and they start with new recruits that don't know how to fight us. Makes things a lot easier."

"How did you know about-"and then I remembered that Angel had informed him of our little plan back where Ari had been. He must have either connected the dots or Angel had told him. I needed to teach that girl what the word 'confidential' meant. "So we kill this batch so we won't have to kill the next as quickly? What sort of screwy logic is that?" I asked.

"No, not at all. We kill them so we stay alive. We get The School to keep expending Erasers until they decide to call it quits."

"That won't work," Fang said. Everyone turned to look at him. When Fang spoke, which was rare, he always had something good to say. "We're too valuable for them to lose. They will expend _anything_ to keep this a secret and to recapture us." He said sadly.

"So we reduce the number they can send against us when they start using more than a dozen at any given time. We can make it harder for them to amass forces. That or the Erasers learn to stop looking for us." Ghost suggested, like it was obvious.

"And that won't work either," I said, thinking of how Ari was becoming more and more insane as the days passed. He would never give up on us. Yes, he might occasionally retreat to fight another day, but that in itself was the problem- he would fight us another day, and then another and so on. Statistically, Ghost was right. Eventually we would slip up, or an Eraser would get lucky, much as I didn't want to believe it possible.

"We've very rarely faced a previous Eraser more then two times," Fang said quietly. "So it doesn't help if we kill them or not, really. Ari has been our only consistent enemy. So you don't have to worry about going up against the same enemies."

"Tell you what," Ghost said "Why don't you do things your way, and I'll do them my way? I like killing them."

"No, I'll tell _you_ what! How about I run this flock, and you shut up? Does that work out for you?" I hissed. He was wearing down on my patients.

"Gee, glad I'm _not a part of it_!" he said back angrily. "You aren't a flock of birds, you're a flock of sheep! Why not use the tools you have? They _are_ useful."

Fang nodded slowly. "They can come in handy," he admitted, overlooking the 'sheep' comment. I hated that he said that. I made up my own mind and did what I pleased! The whole flock followed me because they chose to do so.

"I don't want you here anyways!" I growled. He was corrupting Fang! _Stupid fucking headache, I swear that I-_. Oh. Shit. No, it felt like it was a regular one. Still, better safe than sorry. "Guys, headache," I said. We all dove down into the trees, Ghost following us, looking a bit confused.

"What's going on?" He asked, as soon as we landed. He landed rougher than we did- a reminder that he wasn't used to flying or landing yet.

Fang looked up. "Max has been having headaches. One of them got so bad she couldn't fly. We almost lost her to the ground."

Ghost looked thoughtful. "Max, the next time that happens, I want you to cross your right leg over your left, and your right arm under your left, and do the same with your wings."

I looked up at him. The headache was fading fast, and I felt like an idiot for making everyone land. False alarm. "Why?"

"Well, it won't help much with the landing," he admitted. "But it makes it easier for us to unscrew you from the ground."

_Oh, har har_ I thought to myself. "Okay, let's keep moving."

"Wait," he said. "Why are we taking off so suddenly? A headache doesn't just come and fade like…"

But it was too late for his questions; we were already airborne.

A a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a

I knew that we couldn't stave off his questions much longer. He knew there was more to this flock than he had been told. Angel's psychic abilities was one thing he knew about, and he probably also knew about Gazzy's ability to imitate voices. And he also knew of Iggy's abilities with explosives. So he was obviously a little on edge whenever something strange or unexplained happened- like landing for no apparent reason, and then taking off immediately thereafter. There would be a lot of questions tonight. Questions asked, and questions answered. Maybe we could go for a trade- I answer about the headaches, he answers about…well, stuff. Hopefully he'd answer a lot more than we did. He stayed silent as the trip went on, right up until we decided to land. It was almost dusk, the sun was barely visible over the treetops. The terrain had become more lush and hilly, and we were crossing more roads now than ever before. Still, there were enormous bare patches of land here and there- a reminder that we really hadn't gone far in our few days of travel.

We all landed in a semicircle- even Ghost managed not to trip this time. Quickly, everyone split into making different parts of the camp- fire, scout, and cleaning the clearing of obnoxious twigs and the like.

"Ghost," I said. Everyone seemed to stop paying attention to what they were doing- each had turned an ear or eye towards us. This confrontation was obvious to everyone. They had all been wondering 'why is he here,' but it was sort of mean to say that aloud when he was flying with us.

"Yes?" he asked.

"I know we haven't known one another very long, but there are some things we have to straighten out right now."

"Can't it wait?" he said gruffly, not looking up while trying to split a huge fallen branch. It would be useful for firewood if the woodlands weren't so damp from the storm. Still, by morning it should be dry. He seemed to be unaware that everyone's attention was more or less focused on the two of us.

"No," I said.

He paused, then stood up straight, letting his wings arc over his head. "Great…" _Now_ he was aware. He let the branch fall- shaking the forest floor. "What is it now?"

I decided to use the never-failed, Max's Find-the-Mole strategy. _Find the Mole?_ The voice asked, sounding curious. "Ghost, are you a part of The School?"

He snorted. So did the voice. _Yes, Max, the world applauds your great strategy._ "Like I would ever work for those sadistic bastards. Why?"

"Ghost, there just so happens to be a…most interesting memory. One of you with blood on your hands. Now you wouldn't have killed a scientist- they will put down an Eraser for even touching one, but you're very much alive. That means that you killed someone _for_ the school."

He paled as soon as he heard those words. He was standing absolutely stock still. The others tensed, ready for anything. I looked to Angel. _His thoughts are racing- I can't pick up what he's really thinking._

Bingo. He'd been caught totally off guard. Guilty as charged. Smoking gun. _I told you it would work. _I said to the voice. He stayed silent, possibly

"Oh…that memory," he said, eyes widening. "How did you-" he looked at Angel "Oh, right…"

Angel shuddered. _He found the same memory we looked at. He's going over it right now…_

"Yes, _that _memory," I said. "The one where you have someone's blood all over your hands."

"I take it you want to know what that memory was about?" he said mildly.

"No, I don't." I answered honestly. I wanted to drop that subject- it wasn't something I wanted to bring up.

"Actually, you do. Face it, you're curious, much as you'd like to deny it. I'm not full of blood lust like an Eraser, and I don't kill if I don't think its right. Yet that memory says otherwise, right? Plus the little argument we had on the way here…" he said, connecting the dots. "I can tell you about it, if you want."

I paused. He was right; I was a little curious, if only for curiosity's sake. "Stop when I ask," I demanded.

"Of course," he answered. He shifted a little bit, a little more comfortably. "I…was a fool. Back then-"

"Stop," I said, cutting him short, much shorter than he even expected. He looked up in surprise, mouth somewhat open. "Don't feed me a bullshit story on how you're changed now. I know more than you think, Ghost. Just get on with the memory. Don't describe yourself to me, because you honestly make me sick."

"Fine, I'll get to how I was a fool later." He said with a low grumble. "But let me give you some background at least. At that point in time, I was very young. I was a gem of a specimen, or so my Dad said." He paused. That pause turned into a full stop before I waved. He was smiling a bit, which seemed to be a strange facial expression on him, yet something I'd been seeing with more and more frequency. It was a genuine smile. He almost looked like a normal kid, thinking back to a really happy memory.

"Go on," I said impatiently. Who was this 'Father'? Was Ghost like Ari in that regard?

"He was everything to us. He helped create us. He was our father, sort of. I mean, not biologically. But he was our dad, provided for us more than our biological ones ever did. But he wasn't like the other white coats. He cared for us, and he kept us useful to the scientists so they wouldn't eliminate us. We became Prey for the Erasers. But he did more than that. He taught us how to fight, how to kill. He taught us to be more than just the hunted. He taught us to read and write, how to do basic math. And from there on, he just brought us obsolete computers with material loaded in them. The material covered everything from assassination to survival training. We practiced on one another, fighting, trying pressure points, generally learning how to protect ourselves. Well, we evened the odds against our hunters. We were being tested against fresh, inexperienced Erasers, who soon had the training advantage. An Eraser's life span is very short, as you know. So we studied for longer than six years, and we knew more than the oldest Eraser. It wasn't long before I used it all to my advantage during a fight. An Eraser got a little too aggressive, and I was a little too overconfident by that point. I'd let them beat me time after time. If I ever won, the white coats would start asking questions. But this time he said something about Father. I should have let his insult go. I can't even remember what it was he'd said about Father. But I killed him with his own knife. I remember that moment vividly, because as it turned out, father wasn't pleased."

"And then you realized…" I said. He'd spun a nice tale to be sure, and Angel hadn't cut in, but it was going to take a lot more than _that_ to convince me. Hell, I wasn't sure what it would take. But I wasn't satisfied yet, he still hasn't become trustworthy in my eyes. But if he gives me a decent answer then maybe, just maybe he was actually a decent person underneath all the cruelty and anger he had on the surface.

"I realized I had done the wrong thing. Killing over words, how stupid could I be? I almost ruined everything for the sake of a few words I can't even remember now. They got smart to the fact that we knew how to kill."

"Wrong answer." I frowned at him.

"There is no wrong answer, Max. There is only the answer I gave. This isn't your story, anyways. It's not your place to say what I did and didn't learn, because that is what I learned from it."

"No, the right answer would have been 'I did the wrong thing because killing is wrong.'" I said, correcting him.

"I disagree."

I was taken somewhat aback. If this was a School agent trying to spy on us, it was a miserable failure. Shouldn't he be tripping all over himself, correcting his statements just to get the right answer, just so I would be pleased with the answer he gave and trust him? What if I was wrong? Could I be wrong about him being a spy? Maybe this was just his nature.

"Killing is _wrong_," I repeated. Even a three year old would agree with that, right? Now even the densest spy would realize his mistake and take a step backwards and start contradicting himself.

"And who taught you _that _logic?" he asked, challenging me. He made it sound like _I_ was the 3 year old. His demeanor was also changing right before my eyes. He slowly began to stand now, muscles tensed. His words were now so full of hate that Angel trembled beside me. Instantly, my protective streak kicked in.

"Jeb Batchelder," I said, not thinking about the words until they were out of my mouth.

"Oh, _Jeb Batchelder_," he said, voice dripping with venom at the words, tone one of transparently false admiration. "Right, because he is _such_ a moral, upstanding person, someone to _idolize_," he said sarcastically. "Because someone who works at The School is someone we should _all_ listen to. Right? Wrong. What the hell is the matter with you?"

I was shaking now, my hands balled into fists. I was angry. Furious. He was wrong! He had taken my words and twisted them around. Jeb Batchelder wasn't the only person who thought killing was wrong. "Lots of people better than Jeb think that killing is wrong, too, and if even Jeb thinks that killing is wrong, then where does that put you, Ghost? Are you a monster that's even worse than Jeb? You're hardly making a case for yourself as a good person here."

Ghost laughed harshly. "Jeb doesn't think Killing is wrong, Max. You have a lot to learn about 'Jeb Batchelder, the man who saved you from The School.' He might kill with a scalpel more often than he does with a gun, but he _has_ killed with both. Killed a lot of people I cared about. And from what you always say about him, I sometimes wonder if we're talking about the same man. Then again, he never would shut up about you-"

"I've heard this sort of talk before," Fang cut in. "You sound just like a certain wolf boy we all know and hate."

Ghost whirled on Fang, his face a twisted mask of hatred. Angel stifled a cry and squeezed my hand tightly. His haunches rose, he was seeing red, he was on the very verge of losing it. Then suddenly, Ghost screamed into Fangs face, "Jeb Batchelder killed my father!" Even Fang took a step back. There was a split second of dead silence, spare his voice echoing in the canyon. "He murdered him right in front of my eyes, without even a word of 'goodbye' or 'sorry,' like he was a common animal to be put down! He was my hero, he was my father, and you have the gall to say that he doesn't kill? I know better! And when I faced him in The School, do you know what he did? He let me live! I went in there to die, because that's what I thought I wanted, right after I killed Jeb. Instead, Jeb is still alive and so am I, and what's worse is that Jeb has me…" his furious voice, which had filled our ears earlier, was silent now. Even the mountain's echoes stopped carrying his voice. "I just don't know what I want anymore," he finished quietly.

"I have said my piece," he said, marking the end of his short rant. He sat back down on the rock, breathing hard. He was shaking with energy now. He leapt up from the rock and made his way to the opposite end of the camp and sat down on a mossy log, facing away from us, staring into the darkness.

_Hoo boy...I blew it. We blew it. Crap. Doesn't this just suck. So my adoptive father killed his adoptive father. Wow. You know, just…wow._ That certainly put a bad foot out in front. And he'd said 'our father.' Was there more than one Ghost? God, this made my head spin. I doubted that there was more than one Ghost, but with The School, you never knew.

_This is worse than you know, Max_ The voice in my head said.

_I told you to shut up._ I reminded it. But his voice had spurred me back into action. I looked over to the rest of the gathered flock, which seemed as stunned as I had been only a second ago. I sighed and made my way over to where he sat. I sat down next to him on the opposite side of the log. I looked over my shoulder. None of the rest of the flock had moved. True, Ghost's words had hit home like a bombshell, but I was still disappointed in their lack of ability to react.

I looked over to Ghost. He was slumped over, staring down at the ground in front of him. His face was not illuminated, a dark shadow cast by a thick tree making it too dark to see.

I was busy trying to decide on how to tactically approach this problem.

_Whatever you do, don't say 'I'm sure there must have been a good reason for Jeb to have killed your father,' or 'Hey, he wasn't your biological Dad, so it's no big deal.'_

Gee, thanks for stating the obvious, voice.

"Are you _crying_?" I asked, incredulously. It took a lot to get one of the flock to cry, myself included. And here was someone whom I considered many times more cold-blooded…crying? It doesn't say much about my diplomacy skills, but if you'd been in someone's head and seen a memory like the one I had, you'd be surprised if that someone would even flinch at anything, even death. I could not imagine doing that to someone…and being _pleased_ about it. Even if that someone had done something terrible, such as killed everyone I ever knew, I wouldn't be _pleased_ about killing him or her.

_That's hardly an improvement,_ my voice commented, offering another critique on my diplomatic skills.

"No," he simply said.

"Ghost…" I said carefully. Did he hate us, now, too? "Ghost…please understand, we have to know if what you've said is true or not. How can we be sure?"

He was silent, then he opened his fierce eyes. "What, do you want to have Angel take a look? Go ahead, see how many pieces she comes out in! That shattered my world, you know. I wonder what would happen to a six year old child's."

"Ghost…I…well, there's something about you…"

"What?" he asked. He sniffed very quietly, holding back the tears, I guess. Maybe bad guys could cry, too. He probably wasn't even aware that he'd cried, though. "That I have a soul, that I'm not beyond 'saving'?'" he asked. "Save your breath," he said. "I might not know what it is that I _do_ want, but I'm sure it's not that."

"No, that's not what I was going to say. Let me speak for once!" I said sharply. He went dead silent. _Aw crap, I went across the line_.

He turned away from me on the log and sat absolutely still. The prolonged silence was going to kill me. "Well?" he finally asked. His voice sounded steady, but I knew he was far from ready to be rational. "Are you going to speak, or should I go back to finishing your sentences for you?"

"Ghost, what keeps you going? What is it that lets you keep fighting?"

He paused. He was completely silent. I couldn't even hear him breathe.

"What is it that you live for?" he asked me.

"I live for the flock. They're my family. They're everyone I care for. And if I don't protect them, then I know something terrible will happen. Something unspeakable. So I do my best to get up every morning and do what I can to keep them free. Now I've answered your question. It's your turn to answer mine."

He frowned and nodded. At least he had a sense of fairness. "What do you _think_ keeps me going? What do you think it is that fills my life every waking moment? You _have_ to know by now. I mean, it's obvious, right? Or do you just want to hear me say the words?" He added the last part with spite.

"I honestly don't know." I said. He seemed to be getting more agitated, not calmer. This wasn't working.

"It's a wonder you remained leader this long. Its pure and simple revenge and hatred of Jeb and The School that keeps me going. I'm not sure which I hate more. I'm going to kill Jeb. Anything after that is…well, I'll see what comes up. But I think killing Jeb and going after The School is going to be a lifetime gig. Short as it may be. In other words, I don't expect to live very long at this, but that doesn't bother me to much."

"_That's_ what keeps you going? Then why aren't you trying to kill Jeb right now?"

"There's a good reason, I suppose. I know that fighting The School is going to be harder alone than with some partners. And right now our target is The School. We take that out and Jeb is that much easier to get to. You lead, I'll follow. But I'll do things my way."

"You think _you've_ got problems?" I asked him. He looked up and faced me again.

"What?"

I pointed at my own head. "I'm hearing god damn voices in my head. I don't know what to think of it. It's real, we've established. And it's helped us on a few occasions. But I first got it from a headache that knocked me out…while I was flying. There's no warning. I could plummet to my death at any time. I could have my DNA unwinding, like what happened with The Erasers." I breathed. "So quit your bitching and deal with life. I don't want to have a talk like this again. You need to cool it, because right now you're acting like a self-centered idiot!"

He was now completely facing me. "You really are serious, aren't you? You're hearing voices in your head?" He asked. I nodded, a little afraid. He was acting strange. "That's just…perfect," he said miserably. I looked at him. "You're positive it's not stress?"

I nodded. "It knows things even I don't. Not even on a subconscious level. Like how to make structures." He sighed. "Then again, for all we know, it is…" I conceded.

"Well, if it is, don't worry about your DNA unwinding. It will happen to me first. I don't know how old I am- no one ever counted, even my dear old Dad. But if and when I inexplicably drop dead, _then _you should start worrying." He looked only a little better- he wasn't crying. But he did look a little less angry. Not so much angry at us then at our situation. Which I supposed was a vast improvement.

He sighed, and walked over to Fang, who stood there watching us. "Give me a moment," he said. I nodded and stayed where I was. At this point, putting pressure on him was a bad idea. He'd have to get used to working with a team. But I could give him a moment, same as I gave everyone in the flock a moment. Oh Jesus, did I just upgrade him to flock status in my mind? What sort of idiotic idea was that?

A a a a a a a a a

"Fang," Ghost said. Fang walked over slowly to where Ghost stood. Fang said nothing, as usual. Ghost was intelligent, but frankly, Fang didn't trust him, probably because Max didn't. And possibly because he just didn't like the way Ghost did things. "Look, Fang I came here to follow a competent leader of a…well, more or less normal flock. Or something like that. But I certainly didn't sign on to follow a girl who hears voices in her head, and what's worse _listens_ to them, and travel with a psychic that can control your mind, which by the way is creepy as hell!

"You sort of missed the conversation we had about that," Fang said, clapping Ghost on the shoulder. Ghost jumped at the physical contact, but forced himself not to react. He stood stock still until Fang removed his hand with a muttered 'sorry'.

"What do you mean?"

"Uh, about the voices? Well, we came to the conclusion that either she's gone crazy, in which we don't find anything, or that she's not, in which case we get attacked."

"Isn't getting attacked bad? I mean, fighting is fun, but I don't go asking for it," Ghost said.

"Well, the voice seems to know where we are right now. It's been fairly accurate in its directions. So really, if it really knows where we are, and if it's from The School, then they stand to gain pretty much nothing by telling us where to go. So we're really just finding out if Max is either insane or if we're on to something. And from what Max says, the voice has made itself somewhat useful. It tells her stuff."

"Like?"

"Like when to duck. We don't know _how_ it knows, but it does. We've run into Erasers. And…well, it's _helped_."

"Maybe it's fooling you into trusting it."

"Look, we, and by 'we' I mean the entire flock and I, have already had this talk. If The Voice hadn't pitched in on a few occasions, then we _would_ have lost the fight. So that begs the question, why bother helping us? Why bother leading us to New York to capture us _there_ when they could have captured us just as easily by not saying anything?"

Ghost said nothing, and seemed to be considering this. "Fine," he said. "But while I trust Angel, and I think she's a good girl, one tiny altered thought and I'm out. Okay? And if Max starts hallucinating, I'm leaving."

Fang was tempted to reply with 'good riddance,' but he knew better than to push someone this close to actually leaving. Ghost would be a good asset, no matter how hot-tempered he sometimes could get. Besides, Max would kill him. Painfully. Still, it riled him up to hear Ghost talking bad about the flock, especially about Max, for some reason. Normally nothing got under his skin, not even Iggy's picking people's door locks, Nudge's constant yammering, Gazzy's disgustingly loud farts, or even Angel's occasional slip into someone else's mind got under his skin the way Ghost did when he talked about Max like she was some crazy lunatic.

Now _he_ had a headache.

A a a a a a a

Great, this is my longest chapter so far! I have been busy, and as you know, this is a vital chapter- a turning point, a major plot twist, whatever you want to call it, you know it's important enough to change the story's direction, explain the past, and everything else. It explains why Ghost is so bitter and angry towards the school- to the point that he wants to see them all dead. Yes, his past is a bit full of angst. Was it too full of angst? I don't think so- I tried to avoid that part of Mary-Sue, since let's face it- the flock has had a really screwed up childhood- living on the whims of a scientist they should hate, but were deceived into loving. Really, there's nothing worse than that. So Ghost is really just an interesting contrast to this.

Oh, and by the way, I'm sort of taking a break on this story. No, it won't be for long. No, I'm not taking a break on _writing_ it, just publishing new chapters as I finish outlining the rest of the story and going over it with friends. Stupid Maximum Ride 3…well, there will be major differences. One of which will be that Itex won't kill off all the Erasers, there aren't hundreds of flock clones, and Itex isn't somehow out to destroy the environment. These are just some spoilers for you to think about. And no, Fang's blog amounts to nothing. Let's face it- people ruthless enough to experiment on children have no qualms about crushing insurrections, even if they're made of children. Besides, most kids are too sedentary to really rise to action- sad but true. Or else they would have the right to vote. I mean, if the illiterate and mentally handicapped can vote, why not sixteen year old geniuses? It would be _so_ worth it to see the attempted outreaches from pathetically out of it Senators.

Uh, I realized part of the problem is the way I'm writing the story. No smartass comments that I suck, please, because that's not what I meant, true as it may or may not be. I mean to say that it's the format. Everything in my Macintosh Microsoft word is in multiple lines and paragraphs- but this sentence, which is roughly three lines long in Microsoft word, is probably only one line long on Whoops. So I've started making my paragraphs longer- the huge blocks I see right now might not look very good in Microsoft word, but online they look a lot better. Thanks ed!

Oh, and before I forget, please R&R! Hits are my life at this point.


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